The sad beatnik.

I trick-or-treated up until the ripe old age of sixteen.

The last year I went -- junior year of high school -- I was a beatnik. I ironed my hair, put on a turtleneck and a beret and spent the day at school talking the hip talk and looking really relaxed.

That night, I went trick-or-treating with my best friend, her boyfriend and his best friend, Frank. Frank was exactly the sort of person that the phrased "the lights are on but no one's home" was penned for.

That, oddly, didn't dissuade me from being "in love" with him throughout my entire junior year.

Of course because this is a Mena story, the feelings were never reciprocated and the big joke within my circle of female friends was that he had propositioned every one of us but me.

Ha. Ha. The ironies of life and teenage love.

But I digress.

As the night progressed, and we continued the glorified begging for food ritual, I began to feel pangs of sadness. The source, unknown, I quickly began to try to cheer myself up.

Despite my brave attempts -- eating butterfingers straight from my pillow-case -- I was soon a walking mess.

Choking back tears between bites of fun-sized chocolate bars is hardly the way to spend a night out with friends and I was determined to snap out of one of my "moods."

It didn't take long for me to realize the source on my blues.

---

I had realized that trick-or-treating was in no way giving me the same feeling that it had given me at 6, 9, or even 14 (we didn't go the previous year).

The act of rushing through dinner in order to go out as soon as dusk had fallen seemed pointless. The need to run from house to house in order to maximize the candy intake was a bit tiring. And, most importantly, the process of organizing my candy according to type, brand and favorites just seemed a bit silly.

I was officially not a child anymore and, at that moment, I fully realized the huge gap that now separated my childhood from the present.

Yeah, I know this realization should have probably occurred at 12 or 13. What can I say? I had a delayed adolescence.

Although this night's revelation prevented me from ever trick-or-treating again, I can honestly say that on each and every Halloween, I truly miss being a child.

Still, I can only imagine that Halloween will certainly regain some its magical powers once I have children and can take them trick-or-treating.

The desire to live vicariously through your children is probably on some list somewhere -- you know, the list that states reasons NOT to have children. But still, how great would it be to see all these experiences through a child's eye once again.

It wouldn't be the same, I know. But it should be interesting.

Comments

[kismet]

awww, big bird?

[Anthony]

I had a similar experience shortly after I moved away from the place where I spent most of my growing up years. Me and the guys on my block would play football or street hockey almost every day. When we moved I made my parents take the hockey goal my Dad and I had built and my hockey stick. I never used either of them again. The day it hit me...the day I realized I would never play street hockey again I must have cried for an hour.

There was nothing stopping, me. Heck, there still isn't. But, obviously, it would never be the same.

[megan]

I remember the first year I realized I'd rather sleep in than rush downstairs to open my stocking at Christmas, I was sad

[Erica]

Or the year I knew what was under the Christmas tree and couldn't be excited when I actually unwrapped them.

[Jay]

Mena, great story and an even better picture! If you want to recapture a bit of Halloween, go trick-or-treating with a child. I find that being around a six year-old does wonders for the inner child.

[Mena]

Yeah, I was big bird. One of those great mask and plastic ponchos as seen on this site. But at least, Big Bird isn't creepy.

[m@]

Even worse than sleeping in on Christmas morning rather than getting up was the sound of my mother first threatening and then begging my brother and I to get up. It took me years to learn what that must have meant to her.