Halloween at Midlife. Now that’s scary.
Well, Halloween at my midlife.
You know the hardest thing for me writing about my life these days?
It’s writing about my life these days.
Honestly.
Because I don’t want to think about my kids getting older and things changing and me not being able to have a pumpkin carving contest, making their costumes and controlling my little Halloween family.
Those nuclear family snapshot moments are so few and far between these days.
Or are they?
That’s what has got me stuck. Changing my emotions and idea about what makes Halloween.
Of course, this is not just about Halloween. It’s about everything changing. But the last few days, my thoughts have fixated on Halloween because we have family Halloween rituals.
Such as:
* the Blood sacrifice of one lone squirrel. Preferably the one whose fat self is gorging on my dear beauty cardinal’s sunflower seeds.
* Burning a left whisker plucked off our almost black cat.
No sillies.
Every year. I mean EVERY year, we’ve all carved a pumpkin and held a contest. Now that our oldest is away, there are only four pumpkins but this year, we recruited a child off the streets so we could have five.
I gave my daughter the camera.
This cracks me up. I’ve got my sharpie and the knife. And the horrid stuff on my arm is the aftermath of poison ivy. Only positive is that it’s cut down on the amount of gruesome makeup I’ll have to worry about this Halloween.
Nope. Every year I wonder if they’ve genetically engineered pumpkins without the goop.
I can’t believe he actually ate this.
Okay. Back to my midlife Halloween crisis. Every year I’ve done a face. Like for 20 years. Then I look over at my husband and he’s carving hearts into his gourd. The man — I married 25 years ago — who has always carved a face in his jack-o-lantern carved three hearts.
HEARTS.
Is this guy having an affair or what? Nothing but hearts on his pumpkin?
It’s like the lid for traditional pumpkins I had so carefully counted on every year was obliterated. Blown away.
My goop-eating son was carving something that can only be described as the continent of Africa on his pumpkin.
My daughter impaled hers with toothpicks. It looked familiar.
Hellraiser. I had to google it but that was her pumpkin.
I always wanted creativity to reign in my home — but here. Now. With pumpkins at Halloween?
Was I strong enough?
I stared at my orange gourd with knife in my right hand. A blank canvas. What would I create for this Midlife Halloween? Some smiling melon like always or something new, fabulous and self-aware?
What was my breakthrough pumpkin going to be?
I looked skyward and saw the moon.
And like with most things in my life such as SAT answers and which way to turn on my bike, I went with an instantaneous impression.
The moon. It’s a sign. That’s it.
So I carved a crescent into my pumpkin.
It looked like a no-eyed jack-o-lantern with a crooked smile. Really crooked.
Drat. Stupid.
So I threw some stars in there to take up space.
And that was it.
My daughter’s Hellraiser with my husband’s hearts in background.
I’m carving a moon and stars in my jack-o-lanterns. At least I’m not going to a Halloween party as a zombie geriatric prostitute from the bowels of the Bourbon Street Studio 54.
Nope. That was last year.
This year I’m looking forward mellowing out, gushing over the teensy trick-or-treaters, eating way too many Butterfinger nuggets while lighting our eclectic pumpkins.
And embracing new traditions.
Okay, I so laughed when I typed that. I don’t do new well.
And what say you oh Halloween celebrants?
