I still remember the first year I was too old for trick-or-treating. I was too young for parties, and it was a school night, so I helped my sister get ready, and watched Halloween stuff with my mom while my sister and dad went out and fought for the biggest candy hoal of the century.
I felt grown up but also like something was wrong, like I was about to run out after them, pulling on a bed sheet ready for adventure. But another year passed, then another. I found other things to do on Halloween, things involving friends and campfires and increasingly tiny costumes.
Then I left home altogether, leaving behind my old costumes, pumpkin pails and old maps of houses my dad and I made together. Even now that I am nearing an end to my college career, I still love Halloween.
I love candy and costumes, and I can now actually sit still in a room while a scary movie plays (as long as I’m near a door). I already have Halloween plans for this year, and I know it’s going to be fun, but sometimes I just want to go back to a time where costumes were about looking scary, not sexy.
Back before I was certain that it was a guy in a rubber ape suit and didn’t even have a slight glimmer that it might not be. Back to when my dad and I were the best trick-or-treat team in the whole county, and I wasn’t afraid of any ghosts or goblins because he was right there.
But every Halloween, I still get to think back on that time and think about Halloweens to come. I can still feel that tiny chill as it gets closer to Oct. 31, like anything could still happen, no matter how old I get. Maybe one year I will be part of a new Trick or Treat team, and I can tell them about Charlie Brown’s Halloween special and the goblins. And every year will be the best Halloween ever.