October 31st

Tonight the world gives us permission to be something else. The shy kid becomes a superhero. The serious one becomes a ghost who finally gets to scream. The neighbor you've never spoken to opens their door and puts chocolate in your hand and for one night that's normal. I love a holiday that runs on sugar and darkness and the collective agreement that tonight—just tonight— the monsters are the fun kind. The jack-o'-lanterns on every porch are grinning the same crooked grin: triangles for eyes, a mouth that can't decide between menace and joy, a candle inside that makes the whole head glow like an idea you're not sure about but committed to anyway. The costumes are the best part. Not the expensive ones. The desperate ones. The ones held together by duct tape and hope and a parent who stayed up until 2 AM hot-gluing felt onto a dream. There's a zombie in my driveway. She's four. She's not scary. She's holding a pillowcase bigger than her future and she says "trick or treat" like it's the most important negotiation of her life. It is. Halloween is the one night a year we answer darkness with candy. We walk toward the spooky house, not away from it. We knock on strangers' doors and they answer with sweetness. The whole world says fear the dark. Tonight we decorate it.