It's over. For another year. But is it? My daughter found a way to keep Halloween alive all year long. When she was very little, she kept that costume out, sitting on the other twin bed in her room for days afterward. It became a part of the dress-up costume world. But even then, she was thinking--what will I be next year? And, as a mom that didn't have a clue about a needle and thread, let alone a sewing machine--I cringed, and let her formulate her game plan, knowing I was going to have to find a way to pull together another Halloween dressing scheme. She loved to dress up, to reinvent herself, to linger in the thoughts of what could be! My boys, too, had hats and masks and swords...dressing up, and play-acting is how they lived.
And isn't that what childhood is and should be?
Why then, do we go on, as adults to try and fit ourselves into all sorts of square pegs? Can't we linger a little longer, invent and reinvent ourselves? Imagination never, ever goes out of fashion, and yet--we, the adults, tend to fall prey to that scheme. I'm no longer that, let me be this...it'll bring me more money or even a bit of fame?
Following a passion and imagining oneself into a new pair of shoes, exploring possibilities...rather than simply growing up and following one zombie and another into a dull or ordinary job, now that is the way we should be bringing up our kids. Let them chase, play, and savor. What would it be like if we let go of the dull and ordinary path--and chose a path peppered in candy corn? Savor the sweetness, play in the obsession, savor the dream, the ways to tinker with this or that to find a new way? Creativity is just that. Just because I am this...doesn't mean I have to stay that way. Life and humans are fluid.
And even now, after years of living and moving along a number of different paths, I find myself reinventing, rethinking, re-engineering. I only have so many years to do this, so why wouldn't I take in all the sweetness I can?
Halloween is, after all, for the young of heart. And as long as this heart is passionate and the brain can still conjure up a few dreams, I will stay with the chase and seek that sweetness each and every day of my life.
