For me, there was something weird about getting ready for my first Halloween out of college. It wasn't just that I wasn't going to be spending one of my favorite holidays surrounded by the people that I had been celebrating with for four years, though that was a factor. I was just not as fully prepared as I had been in the past.
The past few years, I'd been in college and had the privilege of spending an inappropriate amount of time preparing for Halloween. This resulted in me showing up to Halloween events in elaborate outfits that included, but were not limited to a hashtag, complete with multiple phrases and velcro-detachable words; a hipster Disney princess; a Zumba instructor (an outfit so convincing that my best friend Anna and I led an entire party in an hours worth of dances and people thought we were real instructors) and, after finding a pair of fake handcuffs in my friend's car and to the horror of my parents, Dominatrix Little Bo Beep.
This year, between working my real job and doing multiple bouts of freelance work, I didn't realize that Halloween was even the next day until my friend Zach alerted me and Ashley in our group text about his dire need for a sailor's hat. Usually, my lack of a Halloween outfit wouldn't have been such an emergency because I was the proud owner of a fully-stocked costume box in college. My costume box was filled with clothing items I'd acquired from 14 years at a dance studio, four years on varsity dance team, four years of sorority informal events and, of course, a large amount of Goodwill purchases. Unfortunately, when I moved from Muncie to Boston, I donated all of that back to Goodwill so that I wouldn't have to pay a small fortune to ship sequins across the country. Ultimately, this move put me in a Halloween dilemma and I latched onto the only slim idea of a costume I had: Max from 'Where The Wild Things Are.'
I have always wanted to be Max for Halloween. 'Where The Wild Things Are' was one of my favorite books growing up and also, I am a huge fan of being warm, so dressing up as a fuzzy monster from head-to-toe seemed like the perfect outfit. Plus, I even had some of the things I would need to make this dream a rag-tag reality. My mom had recently received candles in a holder that looked shockingly similar to Max's crown; I had streamers to serve as a staff that I got from Fagerfest, the event title of my friend's wedding, and, in a fact that will shock approximately no one, I own footie pajamas. Unfortunately, those footie pajamas are not white and fuzzy like Max's -- they are black and have little Lucky Charm shapes all over them, but I had a plan to fix that and that plan was bleach.
Despite the Laundry Incident of 2013, I actually thought that I could soak my black pajamas in bleach and, by the morning, they would be white and ready for me to wear when I went out in Boston that night. Luckily, I live with my mother, who is not only a saint for once taking me to a One Direction concert, but also a queen when it comes to domestic tasks/basic human knowledge and she stopped me from plunging my pajamas in liquid just in time.
Thus, I found myself on Halloween at a party on Mission Hill, wearing unbleached footie pajamas and my fringed fanny-pack, very confused as to what my costume truly was supposed to be.
To be honest, I was pretty disappointed with myself that my costume only consisted of my footie pajamas -- an outfit I'd worn to non-themed parties in college and, on one notable occasion freshman year, to class when I was running very, very late for a test in News 109. I was especially disappointed with my lack of a clever costume because I was out with my brother Jonny and he was dressed as a Sugar Daddy, literally meaning he was just carrying around a gigantic bag of sugar wearing a diaper with a pacifier attached to it. The cleverness of his costume was a huge success with everyone, save for the drunk guy on the bus who kept asking "What kind of costume is 'Flour Baby?'" and also, the guy whose living room was coated in a pound of sugar after someone dropped the bag at the end of the night.
I was lamenting over this with my brother's roommate, Graysen, who I'm pretty sure was dressed as a horse doctor, when a guy with his face painted green walked into the room. As he went around the room introducing himself, it became clear that, in addition to wearing a witches hat, he also had on leggings, Uggs, a black Northface pullover and was drinking Fireball out of a Starbucks cup marked "Pumpkin Spice Latte."
He was a Basic Witch and it was the most clever costume I'd seen all night/ever.*
The cleverness of the Basic Witch costume only served to make me feel worse about not thinking of something better for mine, so I was highly confused when the Basic Witch introduced himself, then said "Your costume is so clever!" I looked down at my footie pajamas, fanny pack and high-tops, then back up at his green face with a perplexed look.
"You're a dreamcatcher, right?," he said. "You've got the pajama thing, the weird fanny pack thing to catch dreams -- very cool. Very clever."
This, everyone, was the exact moment that Graysen and I looked at each other and it was immediately apparent that we both equally wanted to be this man's best friend. But, after a few minutes, the Basic Witch disappeared into the next room and we couldn't find him for the rest of the night. At that point, though, it didn't even matter -- he'd been ridiculously clever and had given my Halloween costume a purpose. Because of that, we'd shared a connection and Graysen and I spent the rest of the night telling everyone how cool he was.
Shortly after meeting the Basic Witch, Graysen and I grabbed these bats off the wall and spent a significant amount of time flapping them furiously in people's faces. The next morning, I found them in my fanny pack.
But, really, life is all about connections, isn't it? Connections with your friends, your family, your boss -- and, I suppose, the guy in face paint that you met at a party for five minutes. I was thinking about this on my walk to work late last week. Although it is no longer 2004 and the Garden State soundtrack isn't relevant anymore, I've been inexplicably listening to The Shins, like, a lot. And, as I was heading to The Globe listening to "Phantom Limb," I realized that I've been very lucky when it comes to having great connections in my life. I have a wonderful family, hilarious friends and a support system beyond belief. When it comes to falling in love, though, a lot of those connections just haven't existed. Sometimes, as James Mercer once said/sung, you follow the lines and wonder why there's no connection.
I'm not worried about this, though. I've written about this before, but in late July, I visited a NYC psychic at 4 a.m. Among other accurate things, Brandy the psychic told me that she saw I wasn't concerned about being in a relationship or falling in love. And, she was right -- I'm not concerned about meeting someone. I'm young and while some of my friends are getting married, I can barely put socks on correctly, let alone actively spend all my energy and time searching for The One.
Instead, I'm spending all my energy and time actively searching for a job. And, while Brandy was right about me not being concerned with meeting someone, she was wrong about me not falling in love. She was wrong because I already am in love. I'm not in love with the Basic Witch or, surprisingly, Zayn Malik, or really, any other boy for that matter.
I'm in love with my career.
I know for sure that the connection that will never break is my love for design, journalism and, of course, ampersands. My job at The Globe ends in a month-and-a-half and, while it's horrifying to my planning personality that I don't have any job lined up yet, it's also exciting for me to look at new opportunities and experiences open to me, all the while knowing that the connection and genuine love for what I do will not end.
So, for now, I won't be looking for someone to spend my life with. Instead, I'll most likely be in a coffee shop, latte in hand, earphones in and designing my resume with an enthusiasm reserved solely for those that really, truly are following their passion -- although, if anyone in Boston runs into that guy drinking Fireball out of a Starbucks cup, give him my number. I bet he has some good ideas for my Halloween costume next year.
* The Basic Witch was the most clever costume I'd seen, but the most committed should go to a guy I'd met a few months before and ran into in Allston later on that night. He was dressed as a milkman and drank only White Russians for the entire duration of the party. That, my friends, is true commitment.