Halloween: Dress Up, But Remember It's Not Your Permanent Costume

Halloween has always fascinated me. It's the one day of the year when we can dress up as someone entirely different, walk out the front door, and have people compliment us for it. Try doing that on a Tuesday in March and you might get a few concerned looks. Although, depending on where you live in San Francisco, nobody would notice. They might even ask where you bought your outfit.

There's something wonderfully freeing about Halloween. We get to play, be outrageous, glamorous, frightening, or downright ridiculous. We can become a superhero, a movie star, or someone who actually understands their health insurance policy. Now that's a fantasy costume!

But I've been thinking about something beyond the costumes we pull out of closets. What about the costumes we wear the other 364 days of the year?

I suspect most of us have quite a collection. Some are carefully tailored, while others have been hanging around so long we've forgotten we're wearing them. There's the costume we wear at work, another around family, and perhaps a completely different one with friends. Then there's my personal favorite, the "I'm fine" costume. It comes with a convincing smile and absolutely no intention of telling anyone what's really going on.

I know something about costumes. I've spent parts of my life in business suits, hospital gowns, and high heels. Each came with its own expectations, and each represented something real about who I was at the time. I've also worn a few invisible costumes that were considerably harder to take off. At least with high heels, you know when your feet hurt.

For years, I believed I needed to appear strong, capable, and in control. As a leader, I thought people expected me to have answers. During serious health challenges, I sometimes felt I needed to reassure everyone else, even when I could have used some reassurance myself. I became quite good at looking like everything was under control. If looking confident while having absolutely no idea what happens next were an Olympic sport, I'd have a gold medal.

The trouble with wearing a costume too long is that eventually we forget we're wearing it. We begin believing the role we're playing is the person we must always be. And sometimes the costume wasn't even our choice. Someone handed it to us years ago. Perhaps we were labeled the responsible one, the difficult one, or the one who would never amount to much. We accepted the outfit and kept wearing it long after it stopped fitting. Unfortunately, emotional costumes don't come with a return policy.

Halloween reminds me that dressing up is fun precisely because it's temporary. We can enjoy becoming someone else without surrendering who we are. At the end of the evening, the makeup comes off, the wig goes back in its box, and we return to ourselves. Except for glitter. Glitter apparently has a longer life expectancy than most household appliances.

Life offers us that same opportunity. We can change how we show up. We can retire an old identity without asking permission from everyone who has grown comfortable seeing us that way. I've reinvented myself more than once, and I suspect there will be more changes ahead. What I've learned is that becoming someone new doesn't require pretending to be someone else. Sometimes it simply means allowing more of who we really are to become visible.

So this Halloween, I hope you dress up. Be silly. Be extravagant. Wear something completely inappropriate for your usual personality. Laugh at yourself. We could all use a little more playfulness, especially when life seems determined to take itself so seriously.

And when Halloween is over, consider what you've been wearing the rest of the year. Is it still you? Does it fit? Or have you been squeezing yourself into an identity that went out of style years ago? You might discover that the person underneath is far more interesting than the character you've been playing.

After all, Halloween is one night when pretending is encouraged. The rest of our lives deserve something more authentic. Dress up, have fun, and remember that it's a costume, not a lifetime commitment.

And please, if you decide to be a ghost, don't disappear from your own life. There are already enough people ghosting us without Halloween getting involved.