Asia Duren
Editor
Photo by Braxton Maclean.
For as long as I can remember, Halloween has been my mother's favorite holiday. She says she likes the idea of getting to be whatever, or whoever, you want to be once a year. (She also really likes that we don't have to throw parties and give presents.) My question is this: Why can't we be whatever we want to be every day?
When you ask a child what he or she wants to be for Halloween, you get a broad spectrum of replies. You could get anything from a dog to an astronaut to a trash can (yes, I was a trash can one year). So we laugh and think to ourselves, why does this child want to be this? Personally, I wanted to hide in my trash can and scare people walking by. I thought my costume would be hilarious, and I like to make people laugh.
When you're little, you have really good reasoning for things. Nowadays, we overthink EVERYTHING we do ─ even Halloween. You get invited to a Halloween party and you need 50 questions answered: Is it still cool to dress up? If I don't dress up, then what am I supposed to wear? If I do dress up, I can't buy anything at a store, because I don't want to be revealing, but I don't have time to make a costume this year. What am I supposed to do?
Remember that scene in Legally Blonde? The one where Elle (played by Reese Witherspoon) went to the Halloween party dressed as a bunny, and then nobody else is dressed up. If you have seen the movie, then of course you remember it, because how she reacted to the situation was awesome.
Elle Woods marched right into a party full of rich people who thought they were too good for costumes and told off everyone who dared to say a word to her. She should be our inspiration. We have the tendency to forget that the world is full of possibilities. Not just when picking out a Halloween costume. We forget that we are adults, and that we are capable of anything. It is easy to forget that you are in charge of your own life when the people around you are constantly telling you to take on more responsibility because the "real world" is so much more difficult than school.
Well, you know what, I could wake up tomorrow and wear a tutu and butterfly wings to class and say I'm a fairy princess. Some people would look at me funny, teachers might be concerned, but if that is what I want to do, then nothing is stopping me from doing that.
So, this Halloween, I encourage you to dress up however you want, no matter what kind of gathering you have. If you are not going to a party, then grab a friend, dress up and go out to. It is freeing to not care what people think of you, and Halloween is the perfect time to be free.