I Remember Halloween
I just foud this. I wrote it years ago, as a wee boy in high school. Enjoy. It’s kinda horrible.
I Remember Halloween
Three Hundred and Sixty Four days a year were usually spent preparing for that one day when I could really be myself. When you’re a kid nothing else matters except having fun and eating candy. To me Halloween was a celebration of just that. I stopped enthusiastically celebrating Halloween last year when I turned fifteen.
It is now 12:24 am, officially Halloween. I have no costume, no candy to hand out, no decorations put up in our front yard, but mainly no ebullience for anything, much less Halloween. It’s the melancholy and the infinite sadness that comes with nostalgia. I am growing up; I am no longer a child. I love having the freedoms of being a teenager, but I really do miss noticing the little things when you are a kid, like leaves falling, or the cold and frail air on Halloween night. I am too busy with school, friends, and girls to even notice that today used to be the most important day of my life. Where did it all go, what did I do in my youth? I can still smell my Nickelodeon trick-or-treat bag caked thick with the smell of melted chocolate, rubber and candy wrappers still stuck to the inner walls of my candy sack. I used to love to carve pumpkins with my brother; my mom would punish us by not taking us to the Encino pumpkin patch if we misbehaved. I remember Halloween. Hay bails, caramel apples and pumpkins set the tone for my backyard. Everything has lost its meaning.
I miss my childhood. I remember not caring about who was going to buy this weekends case of beer, or who was going to be designated driver or what girl wanted which one of my friends. I remember playing Nintendo and waiting for my doorbell to ring with my friends stoked to trick-or-treat. Every year my two best friends and I would go door-to-door with our parents in tow. After two exhausting hours of “trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, if you don’t I don’t care because I’ll pull down your underwear” my friends and I would trench back to my house to watch the Simpsons annual Halloween show while pigging out on candy, Halloween cookies, and soda. How do I still have all of my teeth?
I don’t really miss the candy or the decorations; I miss the aura that comes with Halloween. It was something to get invigorated and enthusiastic about. The crisp winter air still reminds me of standing on my porch hanging streamers from my front door. Children will be laughing and dancing and singing and playing while I am in my room, behind closed doors studying for school the next morning. The Jack-O-Lanterns will flicker until the wick disintegrates and at midnight it will all be over. Another Halloween come and gone, I was not aware it was not coming to Encino this year, but skipping over me because of my mature age. Why should I not be allowed to trick-or-treat? “Aren’t you a little old for this?” Never! Halloween will always bring a nostalgic smile to my face and a smell of the cold crisp air covered with a blanket of melted wax. I remember Halloween.
