What It's Like Not Being Real

A lot of people talk about the lack of love and interest one has for the holidays, particularly Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever the celebrate, as being the obvious signs of maturity, signaling in the death of the wonderful authentic naivety that encompassed childhood. And while they're not inherently wrong, that's never been the one that upset me. The one that upset me personally was the death of Halloween. As a kid, Halloween was the one day I looked forward to of the entire year, the rest of the year meant nothing to me, and not having that tradition as an adult really pains me.

Oh sure, one can attempt to recapture the feeling via experiencing it vicariously through their own children and their Halloween fun, and one can even still participate in Halloween as an adult by either having parties or just doing something by yourself, but it's never really the same, is it? It never reaches that same fantastical peak that the season once hit, and I'm sad to say it never will again. It starts with society classifying the holiday as "kids only", to the point of refusing to acknowledge teenager as kids and stating that after a certain age, usually 14 I've found, you're no longer allowed - or at the very least it's heavily frowned upon - to participate in the Halloween festivities that you once partook in as a youngster. Things like collecting candy, having a costume (though this is one they are a tad more lenient on) and so forth. In some ways, the agonizingly slow death of a once joyous occasion only helps further prepare you for the eventual accepting of the complete and total sterilization of life as you know it as an adult.

Halloween was my favorite holiday, and it still is, even if I can no longer participate for various reasons, none of which I care to go into here. But Halloween appealed to me not because of the candy or the decorations, though both certainly did have their places, but because of two things in particular.

The first is that I liked wearing a costume.

The second is that I liked looking into peoples houses.

Both of these say a lot about me as a person, and none of it is good.

Allow me to elaborate.

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I have never felt like a real person. I think I've talked about that ad nauseam but why not rehash content for the sake of bloating yet another longwinded posts about my ever eternal facade of humanity? I have never felt like a real person. To this day I have trouble differentiating if I truly believe some of the things I believe or if I just believe them because a fictional character I once admired said it. I am nothing if not an amalgamation of traits taken from fictional characters I looked up, who I looked up to only because the adults in my life that I had to look up to were so wildly underwhelming and disappointing that I chose to look up to fake people instead. Because of this, I constantly have trouble remembering who I am, what I really believe and so on.

So, when the opportunity to wear a costume of any kind arises, I jump at the chance, because hey, anytime I get to be someone other than the confusing mess that I am day to day is a win in my book. Here's a character I can either create or emulate from a popular franchise. If I create them, and being a writer/artist I often do, then I get to make up who they are and what they like, and it feels more genuine. If I simply choose to inhabit the skin of a fictional character for a short period of time inside a costume, then I still understand who that character is, how they work, and why they are the way they are, especially if it's a fairly well fleshed out character. These are people with rules and guidelines, hard facts regarding the facets about their personality that cannot be changed, that are ever present, and that make sense. These are everything that I, as a person, am not.

So it's comforting to know that there's a certain time once a year where being someone other than the mess that I am is socially acceptable, if not expected of me. I only wish it were okay to do it longer, without looking like a complete fucking weirdo.

In fact, I'm not ashamed to admit this, there were periods of my life growing up where I refused to break character, and would act like characters I made up or characters I liked for days or weeks on end, all because who they were made a lot more sense than who I actually am. Identity, to me, is just a word. Yeah, I can add things to my so called "identity"; my sexuality, my political beliefs, my ethical morals and whatnot, but in the end it's nothing but a sham. It's nothing but a mirage. Nothing but a bunch of empty, meaningless vague statements that sort of create a person, or what someone thinks a person would be. But I'm not a person. I'm a template, a canvas, willing to take on anything at anytime that I think would possibly suit me well.

I AM a living costume.

🐷

Let's dive into the second, much more complex, statement I made about why I enjoy Halloween. I get to look inside peoples home. Perhaps it comes from being brought up in a house also steeped in lies and fraudulent beliefs, half baked and poorly concocted personalities, that it makes one crave anything that seems remotely different or even possibly real.

I can remember being excited for the door to open, but not because I was going to be given candy, no, because for a brief, albeit shining moment, I would be able to glance inside someone elses home and see how they lived. How they arranged the furniture. What the layout of their house looked like. Because any home, even a home I only knew for a matter of seconds, was better than the home I lived in. I've always been this way, this is something extends far beyond Halloween. I like looking into peoples cars as they drive by, or glancing through an open window from the sidewalk as I stroll on past. I like seeing people who I presume to be much happier than me living a real life, instead of the pseudo fictional life I have created for myself.

And yes, some, if not a lot, of these homes could have their problems too. There may be marital issues, there may be abuse, who knows, but the fact of the matter is that I can create inside of my head what I think it's like, and it's safer to be there than it was to be home. I can remember every single room I've ever been in. I have a photographic memory for architecture. I can't tell you what I ate last night for dinner, but I can tell you what my best friends moms bedroom bathroom in sevenths grade looked like. I can remember the layout of every single school I've gone to, every single public bathroom I've entered, every movie theater I've ever been in. This, for some reason that will never be understandable to me, is information my brain considered important enough to thoroughly categorize. Go figure.

They say that it's fun to see how the other half lives, and it is, so far as you don't actually learn anything from it. As long as you only glean small enough packets of barebone facts to create semi credible assumptions based on those facts, then you're golden. Once you actually learn about someone elses life, the mystique is gone, and it's therefore no longer safe to live inside of. It just becomes another all too real place full of problems.

And then you start looking for another new place to inhabit for a while.

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There's no beating around the bush; I'm a weird fucked up lady.

And now, because of where I live currently, there's no houses around me to admire the decorations on, and there's no kids going door to door brightening the dark night with their illuminating joy that only a child can obtain. No. Now the season, the holiday, is all the more dead and buried than it was before. Halloween, Hanukkah, these are just mere memories now, nothing more, nothing less, a concept I can eek yet another memory out of if I just think hard enough for long enough.

I don't want it to be this way. I want to celebrate Halloween again. I want to be someone else again. I want to look into somewhere else again. But I am stagnant, as a person, and as a participant. Now a holiday is nothing other than just another day. Just another 24 hours to get through. I miss carving pumpkins and stringing up lights, I miss buying candy to hand out and putting on a costume that others can enjoy. I miss the costume so much, because it brought happiness to others, even if that happiness was merely fleeting, it was still happiness and that brief happiness sustained me, because for a moment...just a singular moment in time...

...someone else was happy to see me, because they too liked who I was dressed up as.

It's nice to be seen.