Halloween and High School

It was the evening of my twenty year high school reunion and I was bustling about, getting ready. I helped my three year old into her pink leotard and slipped her glitter-encrusted fairy wings on to her shoulders. Nick needed help squeezing into his too-small Shrek costume and adjusting his mask. Hayley sat at the table, waiting her turn. I adjusted her ponytail, pushing away stray strands of her long, sun-kissed brown hair before slathering the cool mud mask on her face, transforming her instantly into Spa Girl. With everyone finally in full costume, we loaded on to the golf cart and headed down to the clubhouse for costume judging. It was Halloween in August at White Birch Resort. It was also my twenty year reunion...and I wasn't going.

Not because I didn't want to. The logistics were just, quite simply, overwhelming. I was in Minneapolis and the reunion in San Diego. I was traveling that direction in October and had no reason to make two trips to the West Coast in almost as many months. Those were the reasons that dictated my choice. But, if I was honest with myself, I was a little hesitant about going...about seeing faces that would trigger memories, some of which I'd buried deep, and for good reason. Was I ready to dig up the past? Not just the pretty parts, the memories that would make me laugh and smile, but the sharp, jagged pieces that might slice at my heart just as easily as they had the first time around? I didn't know. This would have been the first time I'd seen most of these people since graduation. I grabbed my diploma that sunny afternoon in June of '89, walked off that football field and never looked back....not for my ten year reunion and not to keep in touch with people in even the most cursory sort of way.

My kids lined up for the costume contest and I watched them. I thought about all of the disguises I'd donned and the roles I'd played in high school. Those four years were like a perpetual Halloween. I tried on identities like a preschooler rummages through a dress-up bin, searching for items that, when put together and adjusted in just the right way, announced the perfect fit. I could relate to all three of my kids' costumes: Julia the fairy, a vision in pink, waving her magic wand regally through the air, sweet and innocent and utterly delectable. Nick as the misunderstood Shrek,with his green plastic mask that sported a blinding white smile, tough but tender. And Hayley the Spa Girl, simple and vulnerable in her bathrobe, the mud mask on her face hiding her...cleansing her, stripping away the old. I realized with a start that each one of these costumes represented me -- at different stages -- in my high school. Was it coincidence? Was I seeing things, making connections that weren't really there?

I didn't think so. I don't think my experience -- the roles I played on my quest to discover who I was and what I was all about -- was an anomaly. So maybe I took some things to the extreme. Maybe. But every situation -- the good and the bad -- shaped and molded me and made me the woman I am today. Two decades later, I finally feel like I know who I am. More importantly, I can say, with a smile on my face and with unmatched confidence, I like who I am, who I turned into after the costumes and disguises were safely stowed away.

I spent my night trick-or-treating with my kids, enjoying an extra Halloween, our Halloween in August. I watched them race from house to house, shrieking with delight and exclaiming over their bags filled with goodies and I couldn't imagine a place I'd rather be. Later, after we'd started a campfire and snuggled into chairs, I cracked open a Pacifico. It was after nine in northern Minnesota which meant the party was -- maybe -- just getting started at the House of Blues. I offered a silent toast to all of those high school friends converging at that club, hair and make-up carefully done, dressed to the nines. I hoped those weren't costumes or disguises. I hoped my former classmates were comfortable with who they were. Where they'd been. What they'd accomplished.

I hoped they recognized how special each of them were. Are. I hoped egos and reputations had been set aside and that my classmates could enjoy each other as the unique individuals they were. That was what I wanted and that was what I was missing, I realized. Not the party, but the chance to see my classmates with twenty years of life experience under their belts, with the disguises finally set aside. Halloween was over and I was sure they were all beautiful.