Halloween is Different This Year for Me

Excuse me if I get a bit testy on your Facebook posts today...or anything in general, really. You see...it's Halloween.

And it's hard to put a mask on and dance about like a drunken druid on some sunny Solstice day and everything around me...reminds me of frivolity.  But, I'm sad.

First off...I didn't get any pumpkins.  Didn't gut them...no seeds in the oven to burn to a pulp (oh, look...an inadvertent "pun-kin" there) because apparently I'm the only one in human history who can't toast a seed worth a damn.  So...no pumpkins, no pathetic attempt of carving with those crappy plastic knives they sell you with the artsy templates that would have had Michelangelo gouging his own eyes out with them...you know, if he would have had to use them back then.

Secondly, I have no candy.  I live where no one's going to come anyway.  If they do...I guess I'll just pretend I'm not here...or I'll give them some AAA batteries or a nicely wrapped can of dented soup...or something  So that means no 10 p.m. binging on mini-nuggets of Kit-Kats, Whoppers, and Dove's...oh my.  No waking up to wrapper shrapnel littering my sofa and floor.  Nothing.  I don't even have a cookie here to get my choco-fix.  I didn't venture out because I know it will all be marked down 50% the day after Halloween and I guess I can just take an extra Ambien or something.

  

Thirdly (is "thirdly" even a word), my daughter's at college.  I have no reason to dress up - my cats won't care one way or the other.  There's nothing more sad (well, yes there is) than to realize I can't slap a costume on my youngest kid just to justify donning one myself.  If I had a dog...I could probably dress them up...but cats don't appreciate the sentimentality plus they are way too sensible to let humans pop a cape or hat on them to satisfy some whimsical deviant dress-up fascination.  I also have no latent desire to priss up my pussy...for Halloween nor any other holiday.

Lastly, I guess I'm alone with my thoughts...for the first time.  Before, I had to put on a happy face...donning a mask of sorts because it was a happy day, a celebratory day, a day of rejoicing...of candy and costumes...of children and their squeals of "Trick or Treat" and of running up and down lawns, leaving little footsteps in the glistening grass, and scurrying to get under a streetlight to see what you just got.

And what I just got was a flood of memories.  You see, my "Mumzie", my "Mummo", my mother...died on Halloween in 1999.  And...I'm alone - for the first time really...with my adult son...and my cats...and my thoughts.  I always was too busy...with other happy things...to go off and cry; I had to put a mask on and hide it.  It might be Halloween to nearly everyone else on the planet...but to me it's also such a sad day.  I always wondered how people dealt with the death of a loved one...on a "special" day...when all around you is celebration...but deep in your heart, it's nothing but.  It's hard to do...and I guess, from now on, I'll just have to put a brave face on and come to terms with it.

But...it's so hard.  Wow...it's really, really hard.  :(

(And, yes, you can dress your cat up...but, why would you?  Okay, I admit, it's my cat, Simon...with a tiara on his head...on New Year's Eve.  I'm not proud of myself...and yes, that's what cat embarrassment looks like.)