I'm Not Going Trick or Treating This Year & It Hurts.
This morning I decided that I won’t be going trick or treating this year. I know you’re thinking, “she’s 36 years old, why is this blog worthy?” I’ll tell you, it marks a significant change in my patterns and acceptance of life circumstances.
This will be the first time I’ve missed trick or treating in 17 years. Ever since my son was born, Halloween was the one ‘holiday’ we could both participate in equally. I missed out on having a childhood, in fact, my only Halloween memory from childhood is a damaging one. For some reason, I got punished after my mother planned us kids a party complete with magician. She made me stay upstairs while all my friends came to my house for a party. I had to be about seven, maybe eight years old.
With the birth of my son, I embraced Halloween and have taken the chance to be a kid again (for the first time.) For the last 10 years or so, my son, best friend and I would go trick or treating together. My son and I would look like kids out trick or treating from door to door and we had our grown up with us. At the end of the night, when we’d walk away with over 200 pieces of candy each, get in the car and swap, life was happy.
Year after year I’ve recreated that happiness, until 2016. My best friend fell into a coma in the spring of 2016, where he remains to this day, October 19, 2017. Last year marked a year of change in my life and I was forced to roll with the punches. I’m a creature of habit, routines find me before I notice we’ve become one. So last year when I was hit with the double whammy, my best friend’s in a coma and my 16-year-old son told me he’d rather not go trick or treating, I didn’t know what to do.
I’d gotten use to the Halloween high, or so I thought. Since neither of the people that made this day special were able to spend it with me, I decided to do the next best thing. I asked my other close friend, who I’ve been battling with for a year as our friendship dissipates to be our driver and then I asked my sister and her kids to accompany us.
It was a disaster, my sister had very little interest in the kids or the trick or treating. She lagged behind us the whole time on her phone although they were her kids, one was in a stroller and she brought an extra kid that wasn’t hers. I played baby sitter all night. The guy friend who was with us, was fascinated by the decorations but seemed majorly uninterested. He says he loved it, but that’s part of why our friendship is almost nonexistent now, everywhere I take him, he seems uninterested, we can’t talk about ti, we don’t seem to enjoy anything the same. There was none of the usual joy and excitement that I used to get when I went with best friend and son.
Fast forward to 2017, best friend’s in coma and I didn’t even bother to ask son about Halloween. Instead, I started to look at an ex-girlfriend’s children, I even asked her if I could take them trick or treating. She said yes. I hadn’t planned on seeing the guy friend for Halloween but he started asking me about it, told me he took the day off already to drive me around. The more I’ve thought about Halloween lately, the more I’ve dreaded it.
I realized that the reasons I was willing to participate meant absolutely nothing to me, so I can’t. I don’t care if he took off, I didn’t ask him to. I don’t want to drive around or walk around with him attempting to have fun. I had him with me last week for a speaking engagement and like everywhere else I take him, I feel he tried to bring drama to me that night. I don’t want to keep doing shit with someone whose company I can’t enjoy.
When it comes to disappointing my ex-girlfriend’s kids, I barely know them. Her oldest is eight I think, I’ve seen the girl maybe twice since she was a baby. Her middle kid is 2, he barely knows me and her youngest is like a month old. She has a new baby, new family with her man in the home now, they just got a new place and moved out of the city. I’m gonna let them be.
I normally wouldn’t be outside on Halloween night alone, but Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year. It’s the only day I don’t have someone to host my free weekly writing workshop, so that’s where I’ll be, working.
Then I’ll come home and acknowledge that the one thing consistent in life is change. My son is all grown up, my best friend is gone, things are not the same and I can’t pretend they are.
