scary...

Happy Halloween!?

Or is it?

I remember being a kid and Halloween being one of my favorite holidays.  I mean come on, it was the perfect opportunity to dress up as your greatest fear and face that stuff head on! Witches, ghosts, aliens, skeletons, etc... they were always everywhere.  Of course there were mummies and goblins.  I also remember hobo's and clowns (before that was the single most terrifying thing ever!  Thank you Stephen King).

Of course there were always the kids that evidently had no fears and they were in the fun, silly costumes. Either that or their parents might have been more concerned about potential psychological damage down the line. And not looking forward to paying for years of therapy, opted for balloons and unicorns.

I remember watching Halloween start morphing when I was in my late teens. At some point it started to be people that frightened us, that were ridiculed and mocked.  Presidents, politicians, despots and dictators started being combined into a mix that still included those traditional nightmares, but it started to become far more personal.

I think I started tuning out of Halloween in general when the pumpkins, ghouls and goblins started to be out numbered by the personal attacks and satire driven agenda's.  It just all went against what i firmly still want Halloween to be.

Somewhere along the line, we as a society seem to have forgotten how to simply have joy in an age old celebration of fear and faith.  It has started to morph into something I simply do not want any part of.

As I woke up this morning to the news, NPR is sadly the only non-jarring station to slowly wake up to. They were talking about some students claiming other students were being racists for their choice in costumes at a party off campus.  Wanting them kicked out of school.

It bothered me.  Which is why I am sitting here at 6:30 am in the morning, sorting through my thoughts. It sounds like the costumes were in fairly poor taste, but then aren't most Halloween costumes?  I mean if you are a Wiccan Practitioner couldn't a witches costume be considered racist?

The part that bothered me the most, was that at no point did the students calling for expulsion seem to think about things from the opposing view point.  We live in a very divisive time. Maybe those students were simply facing their fears?  In a highly inappropriate manner I would argue, but then most of what I witness going on now-a-days seems to be in a highly inappropriate manner.

Personally, I'm going to say that my children and grand children stating that people are always "butt hurt" is probably pretty darn accurate.  At some point in time, we've moved past the point where it is okay to agree to disagree.  That its more important to attack, malign and generally belittle those that disagree with us, instead of having a conversation.

I don't agree or disagree 100% with any of the things going on around me at this time.  What I try to do is encourage and support each view point.  I don't have to be right.  I have to be honest to who I am.

There are many costumes that offend me on a personal level.  Internally, I am going to put a check mark in the wtf? column in my brain and move on. I am not going to attack or demand your demise, I am just going to wonder for a moment.  Because I long ago learned that if it isn't going to matter to me in five years, to move on.

I dressed up this weekend as a black panther.  My youngest grand daughter was a Panda in a cage.  Mom was the lion trainer - nope couldn't find a lion costume, and Hubs was the tiger - I didn't have any brown clothes to wear.  I thought about the monkey to go with her circus, but again no brown clothes, and I didn't want to hear any of the make believe racist comments.  My Grand Babies are all mixed race and far too often people show me they are still stuck in "wtf?" land.

I felt pretty darn comfortable being a panther.  Until the very end when someone said "seriously? can't wait to hear what this stirs up"????  WHAT?

I'm tired of the over sensitivity.  I'm tired of having every comment, conversation, costume, etc  questioned and doubted.

I think my oldest grand daughter was right when she initially wanted to simply where a t-shirt that said "commitment".  And when asked to explain her thoughts she said "because that stuff is scary as...".

Oh wait... there are probably some religious people that would take offense with that....

What happened to the days that the scariest thing about Halloween was Candy Corn (my personal favorite FYI)?

Spiked Hot Chocolate anyone?  I think I am going to build a fire in the fire place and sit this one out...

p.s. how about we all live and let live?