The leaves are changing, the lines are long at the pumpkin patch, and all of our favorite coffee shops are stocked full of the salted caramel and pumpkin spice flavors. It is finally the time of year again where we have to pack away our bathing suits and tanning lotion. But one thing we do get to do is dig out those cardigans collecting dust in the backs of our closets. Yet one of the biggest reasons we all find ourselves getting excited for colder weather lies within an age-old tradition of costumes, scary ghost stories, creepy crawlers and full moons. Yes, it's finally time for Halloween again.
With a new season comes a new opportunity to evaluate our lives. Many of us might find ourselves updating our wardrobe, fall looks, and decorations around the house. We get so excited about hanging up skeletons and icing ghost-shaped sugar cookies or setting up faux gravestones around the front yard.
As college students in today's world, we are burdened with debt, cars that never seem to work right, parents that worry about how we spend our time, clowns in our communities and clowns running for office, professors that won't get off our backs about a concept we've already learned five years in a row, and hurricanes that cause harm to land we've known and love for ages. Now that it's time for Halloween again, we can forget about these bigger problems and go back to a simpler time. When our biggest fear was the skeleton hiding under our bed and not the skeletons hiding our closets.
I remember when I was about five years old, and it was the first Halloween that I can remember being particularly excited about. I had known exactly what I wanted to dress up as since my birthday that summer: my favorite Powerpuff Girl, Bubbles. My mom helped me find the costume, and we got a special light blue cloth bag to match my outfit for collecting candies in. Walking around my neighborhood dressed as a superpower girl with my mom's hand in mine is a memory I'll never forget. These days, we all spend so much time sweating the small stuff. It's time we slow down and appreciate the beauty that is around us.
For one night, we can forget about who we are and what we've done. We can dress up, put on a different face, and pretend for a few hours that the only scary thing about this world are the legends we read about in books. Halloween is a chance for individuals of all ages to come together and birth creativity. Between the lavish costumes and the fascinating makeup looks, the holiday almost acts as a seasonal fashion show.
