Ghosts, witches, and monsters. Those were the basic costumes. I had to go all out, and I had a rocking idea. I grabbed all my father’s gear and put it on. Slipped on his work pants, pulled over a jacket, and topped it off with his helmet. I thought, how cool would it be to show up in my father’s firefighter gear.

I’d be the only ten-year-old girl with a real outfit rather than a costume from one of those silly Halloween stores.

I set my father’s work clothes aside and placed my trick-or-treating bucket right on top. I remember rushing right to bed, hoping that the next time I opened my eyes, it would be Halloween day. But as much as I wanted to sleep, I couldn’t. I was way too excited.

With only a couple of hours of sleep, it was finally Halloween day. I’d mentally check out of school and give all my attention to what seemed like the biggest night of the year. Paper planes landed on my desk containing voting ballots for the best costume award. I had already made up my mind on who I was voting for.

Me.

The idea of Halloween has changed over the years. I tried to hold onto my inner child for as long as I could, but society did not let me. Somewhere in between running around and getting free candy, the idea of dressing up gets lost.

When middle school rolled around, kids would slap on a cowboy hat with their regular clothes and think that was cool. Not dressing up became a validating sign that you were one step closer to what we thought was adulthood.

Kids my age wanted to be grown so badly, which led them to try and skip their childhood years. That was something I truly never understood. Being young is a blessing we all take for granted. We’d never get these years back. What is the rush? Young people crave to be old and old people crave to be young. But there never seems to be an in-between.

In high school, you are around fourteen to eighteen years old. Kids ranted about how these are the years where we have to start acting older. I thought teens should be able to enjoy their last few years of being a kid before they are legally an adult. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy your Halloween when you are a teenager. Yet, many people thought otherwise.

When I got to college, it became more socially acceptable to dress up again. But not in the way I thought.

I felt pressured to conceal less and reveal more. Many females my freshman year made me believe that’s what Halloween was all about. Females could wear whatever they wanted, but as least as possible is what everyone wanted. I was under the impression that I would be able to wear the most creative costume again, but that’s not what society had in mind.

I may have given in my first and second years, but that was it. I didn’t want to dress up like every other woman anymore. I didn’t want to suppress my inner child any longer. Some nights, it’s OK to still be just a girl. 

Come junior year, I helped come up with the idea of a costume contest for my team. Every off-campus house was a group, and all of the ladies that lived on campus were a group. The first year we had the team show up as The Sandlot cast, ghosts from PacMan, and Oompa Loompas. The team had so much fun that we decided to make it a team tradition to wear fun costumes to practice and work out.

This year we had Bananas, Powerpuff girls, M&M’s, and the cast from Monsters Inc. We would all dress up as best as we could. The key was to order costumes weeks in advance and rush to Party City for the best accessories.

Making a team competition helped me and my peers, to not only come together as a group but also to show our school that it’s still socially acceptable to have fun with Halloween. It’s not always about parties, alcohol, and wearing scandalous outfits. It’s okay to act and be young. Slow down. We shouldn’t indulge in the weird expectations society makes up.

Trick-or-treat, they say. So be it.