What Are You Supposed to Be?

    As I'm typing this, children are walking up and down our street and through our neighborhood, dressed as pirates and witches and zombies, and it's my job to give them candy. It's my first Halloween, and I'm nervous about it. I was at first wearing a tee shirt and pajama pants, since it's Sunday and the pajama pants are plaid and cool-looking, but after a few batches of children had passed through, I noticed their parents, hanging behind, and realized that I didn't want to be that girl handing out candy in pajamas. I ran upstairs and switched to cords, then came back down. I asked Deanna, "What am I supposed to do? How much candy are they supposed to take? What am I supposed to say?"
     "Just say Happy Halloween, and then they'll take a piece of candy."
     "Just one piece? How are they supposed to get tons of candy?"
     "They'll end up with tons," Deanna's friend Elizabeth, who is visiting, assures me. "Everyone is giving them one piece of candy."
     Still, when a little boy with a camo painted face lingers over the bowl for a few seconds, deciding between the starburst and the tootsie roll, I quietly assure him, "Go ahead, take 'em both," and smile. I'm already breaking the rules.
     A few minutes ago, a couple of boys (probably 11 or 12) came up to the door for their treats. I wished them a Happy Halloween, and as the first boy chose his treat, the second said, "Your shirt is awesome."
     "My shirt?" I asked.
     "Yeah, I like it."
     The other boy looked up, read my shirt. "I'm sorry," he read slowly, "I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am." He nodded in approval, in the "too-cool" way that only 12 year old boys can. "Nice. That's a GREAT shirt." He started to walk away, having collected his skittles. "I'll buy it off of you for twenty bucks."
     Before I could respond, he was gone, clumping down our front porch steps. I turned to Deanna, who was sitting on the couch behind me, laughing at the exchange. I don't know why he offered to buy my shirt, especially since I'm pretty sure it only cost $10, and twenty dollars is a lot of money to a kid. Was he showing off for me, for his friend? Was he trying to act as cocky as the ninja he was dressed as?

     When I was younger, Mom was very firmly in the camp that Halloween was the devil's holiday, and inappropriate for children to celebrate. Although my siblings and I dressed up at least once a week, usually to do interpretive dance to Peter and the Wolf, we did not do so for October 31st. On the last day of October, we stayed in. I never felt like I was missing out. We had a All Hallow's Eve party one year, and other years our church had Harvest Parties where we could dress us and win prizes. And after all, I've always been aware that there are certain things I will never be able to do because I'm a Christian. When I was a child, one of those things was Halloween.
     When I got older, after we had moved out to the country where no one goes trick or treating anyway, we made friends with a family who always held a big Halloween party, and they invited us. This was a huge deal. Mom decided that it would be okay to go to the party. I dressed up as an Autumnal Fairy, wearing the vintage hippie dress I had picked up at a store in Mount Vernon adorned with leaves and with wings (made of wire hangers, panty hose and spray paint). After that, we went to the party every year, but I've never been trick or treating.
     This year, for the first time, watching all the little kids and the middle-schoolers traipse past our front window, I wish I would have had that kind of childhood, just for Halloween. Maybe it's not even that experience that I want. The thing that's so attractive about Halloween is the pretending. Pretending to be someone else, someone who is cool, distinctive, powerful and interesting. When I was a kid, it was easy to pretend. I pretended to be confident. I pretended to be in charge of things. I pretended to be a mermaid every time my friend Rosalyn came over.
     At some point, probably age 13, the pretending became lying. When people talked about music or movies, I pretended that I knew who they were talking about. I lied about who I was, and who I thought I was. When a friend of a friend told me that she didn't like the way I dressed, I told my friend that I didn't care what that other person thought. I told them that I was my own person, that I did what I wanted to do.
     During my senior year of high school, pretending just got too hard. It was too hard to keep track of the bands I was supposedly into. I couldn't keep trying to gauge whether people were talking about song titles or albums. I wouldn't make up any more plots of movies based on the summaries I'd heard from others. I decided that I was going to stop pretending.

     It's nice, as it turns out.

     Now, when someone says, "You know in that movie Requiem For A Dream..." I say, "Nope, haven't seen it," before I can be tempted to lie. Sometimes I think I might be too assertive about it, telling everyone the things I haven't seen or heard or done willy-nilly, scattering my inexperience into the ears of anyone who will listen. I'm afraid that if I don't say something right away, I won't say anything at all and I'll be back to who I was in high school, a girl who was too afraid to be herself for fear that the person she'd invented was much better than the person she really was. I used to pretend to be things because I thought that was how I should be, now I try to do what I want to because that's how I have to be.
     Still, the seduction of pretending is always too close for comfort. Am I wearing this plaid thrift store shirt because I like it, or because everyone else likes it? Am I watching this movie because I want to see it, or because that awesome person over there was talking about it a few days ago? I think I'm still motivated by what other people want, and I think I always will be. The difference, maybe, is that now when I talk to that awesome person over there about the movie, I usually say, "So, I watched (500) Days of Summer because you were talking about it the other day, and you're awesome." Maybe that's more awkward. Maybe it's more off-putting and forward. Either way, it's more truthful. Pretending is no longer about fooling people. Pretending is fun and easy again. Pretending is just for fun and creativity.
   And Halloween.

Goals For Fall Break

I tend to create goals for myself that I cannot achieve. I expect to accomplish too much in a day, and I realize that. I guess since I never actually accomplish everything I set out to do, I have this feeling that if I put fewer things on my to-do list, I won't finish that shorter list, either. Still, even though I always include "low priority items" that I know will just end up first on tomorrow's To Do list, I end up lying awake at night, unable to sleep because all I can think about are the things I've left undone, and the possible repercussions for my "slacker" behavior. I got to thinking about that today when I told my housemate Deanna that I didn't get as much done over fall break as I intended (a common refrain for me). "I didn't do anything productive at ALL on Thursday," I moaned. "I should have done something on Thursday so I wouldn't have to worry so much today."
After that, we talked about our breaks, and I realized that, even though I didn't complete all my To Dos, I did do a lot of stuff over break, even though I felt like I'd been a lazy bum. Why do I feel like a lazy bum? Because I didn't complete the things that I supposedly "needed" to do. I told Deanna about the fun things I did on Wednesday with the caveat that "The stuff I did on Wednesday was fun and I enjoyed it, and I got to spend time with my family, but..." Although the words I was saying made it seem like I recognize that family time is important, the tone that I was using clearly indicated that my actions are at odds with my words. I wanted to blog about my continual failure to "get things done," and my high stress level this semester, because I keep "slacking off." Why don't I focus more on school? Why don't I do everything I need to do?
I realized that when I talk like that, I'm making myself feel like I am a slacker, when I'm not even close to failing any of my classes. More importantly, I'm learning a LOT, both inside and outside of class. Isn't that what I'm going to college for? To learn? Am I learning? Yes, definitely.
So why do I pay attention only to my failures?
Why do I act like things that aren't assigned for me to do are unimportant?
Why do I put things on my list that I know I will never complete?
Why don't I focus on all the things I did get done this week?

With all these questions in mind, here is my special list for today. Instead of making a To Do list, I'm going to make a Have Done list for my fall break.

Watched The Darjeeling Limited with Mom and Dad, which means that I have now watched every Wes Anderson film.
Wrote two journals for my Groups class.
Read half of The Help, a book for my friend Danyella's book club.
Made collages with Mom and my sisters.
Wrote 20 pages of a script I'm working on with Nick.
Beat three bosses in Super Mario Bros Wii with my siblings and my friend Kevin.
Talked with Zach about his life and my life.
Wrote a KWL for Comm Theory.
Read three books of the Bible.
Went to a bonfire with some friends from church who I rarely see.
Studied for my New Testament Exam for 4 hours.
Spent an afternoon (and a late night) having a jam session with my entire family (including Mom, who can now play ukulele!)
Went to a choir concert my dad performed in.
Ate dinner with my family multiple times.
Talked to my old choir director.
Went to church.
Talked to my friend Alyssa on the phone,
Watched Taxi Driver for History and Theory of Film.
Did a load of laundry.
Hung out with my family in general.
Watched an entire movie with my little sisters (which is, unfortunately, rare for me, since I usually leave them half-way through to do something else).

That is a lot of stuff for someone to do in a fairly limited amount of time. And all of that was beneficial to me. And all of it was good for me to do. I didn't waste my time this fall break. I think I actually spent my time really well. I'm going to focus on that, instead of the two items on my To Do list that I didn't complete.