Halloween Was My Favorite Holiday Until Everyone Grew Up: Notes on a Depressing October 28th
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday.
I loved the decorations, the costumes, the candy, the stupid scary movies, the neighbors pretending to be dead when they were very obviously standing behind a curtain. I loved the energy of it. The whole neighborhood seemed to agree, for one night, to become slightly ridiculous.
And now?
Now October 28th can feel like standing in the run-up to a holiday that already feels different.
The decorations are still in the garage. The candy is sitting in the pantry. I may or may not have bought the kind I like and then pretended it was “for the kids.” Sure, Michael. Nobody believes that. Not even you.
But the magic has changed.
The kids grew up. Some moved away. Some have families of their own. Some are too cool to trick-or-treat with me now, which is honestly rude because I had years of costume logistics invested in those children. I helped create tiny vampires, witches, superheroes, ghosts, and one extremely committed werewolf.
Now they send a text, maybe. Or a picture. Or nothing, because life is busy and they’re doing what people do when they grow up.
I’m proud of them. I really am.
So why does it hurt?
The empty porch tells the truth
There’s a particular kind of sadness in putting a bowl of candy outside and realizing you don’t actually know if anyone will come.
The porch light is on. The decorations are out. The little plastic skeleton is hanging from the railing, looking more socially successful than I feel. And then the doorbell doesn’t ring.
Or it rings three times in twenty minutes and then stays silent for an hour.
That silence can get loud.
You start remembering the years when the house was chaos. Kids running up the steps. Parents standing at the sidewalk. Somebody yelling, “Wait for me!” Somebody else losing a shoe. The annual debate over whether teenagers are too old for trick-or-treating.
They weren’t too old. I don’t care what anybody says. If you’re willing to wear a costume and say “trick or treat,” I will give you candy. We need more opportunities in life to be ridiculous without explaining ourselves.
But children grow up. That’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re supposed to leave the porch and find their own streets, their own friends, their own lives.
And still, a part of me stands there waiting for them to come back in a costume that’s too big.
Missing the people who made Halloween feel like Halloween
The other grief is harder to explain.
Some people who loved Halloween aren’t here anymore.
Maybe they were the ones who went overboard with decorations. Maybe they carved pumpkins with the seriousness of surgeons. Maybe they had the best costumes, the worst costumes, or no costume at all except a black hoodie and an attitude.
Maybe they were the person who always answered the door.
Maybe they were the person who made you laugh when you didn’t feel like laughing.
Halloween has a way of bringing those people back for a minute. You hear a song. You smell cold air and leaves. You find an old decoration in a box. Suddenly, they’re right there in your mind, telling you the candy bowl is too small or your costume makes no sense.
Then the memory moves on.
That’s the part nobody puts on the greeting card.
The holiday is supposed to be about ghosts, but sometimes the real ghosts are the people we loved. Not scary ghosts. Familiar ones. The kind that live in the kitchen, on the front steps, in the old photos, in the jokes we still tell because they said them first.
There’s nothing wrong with missing them. Grief doesn’t stop being real because the calendar says we should be having fun.
A few grief resources, including What’s Your Grief and Psychology Today, talk about how Halloween’s images of death, darkness, ghosts, and loss can bring old pain closer to the surface. That makes sense to me. The holiday practically hangs a neon sign over everything we’ve been trying not to think about.
Pretending to be festive when you’re not
There’s also the pressure to perform.
You scroll through social media and see perfect Halloween families. Matching costumes. Professionally decorated houses. Children who apparently cooperate for photos. Couples dressed as characters from shows I haven’t watched. Dogs in little outfits looking personally betrayed by their owners.
Everybody appears to be having the greatest Halloween in recorded history.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the couch eating mini peanut butter cups and trying to decide if I have enough energy to answer the door.
Who comes up with these expectations? Why do we have to be cheerful on schedule?
Sometimes you’re depressed. Sometimes you’re dealing with anxiety. Sometimes you’re having panic attacks or trying to get through another month after losing somebody. Sometimes the kids are gone, the house is quiet, and the whole holiday reminds you of what used to be there.
It’s such a shitty place to be.
And then you feel guilty because other people are struggling more, so you tell yourself you have no right to feel sad. But feelings don’t work like a courtroom. There isn’t a judge who says, “Your grief is valid, but someone else has a worse case, so you’re dismissed.”
We can be grateful and lonely at the same time.
We can be proud of our kids and miss who they were.
We can love the memories and still hate what the memories remind us of.
When the darkness outside matches the darkness inside
By October 28th, the days are shorter. The light disappears earlier. The weather gets colder. Halloween is close enough to feel hanging there, which can bring its own weird mix of anticipation and dread. The trees look like they’re giving up, which feels a little personal.
For some people, seasonal darkness can worsen depression, fatigue, and low motivation. The National Institute of Mental Health has information about seasonal affective disorder, and it’s worth taking seriously if this time of year brings more than ordinary sadness.
I don’t mean every gloomy October night is a medical crisis. Sometimes it’s just a gloomy October night. But if the depression sticks around, if you’re isolating, barely sleeping, sleeping all the time, using substances to get through the evening, or having thoughts about hurting yourself, please don’t white-knuckle it alone.
In the United States, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also contact a mental health professional, a doctor, or somebody you trust. You don’t have to wait until things become unbearable to ask for help.
I know. Asking for help is not always easy. I’m not exactly a gold medalist at it myself.
A Halloween-night playlist for when you’re not feeling festive
This is the fifth and final piece in our Octaves of October series, so naturally there has to be music.
Not a playlist for dancing in a crowded bar. Not a playlist for pretending everything is fine while wearing a costume that took three hours to make.
This one is for the porch light, the quiet kitchen, the long drive, and the people who feel the season a little too deeply.
- “Halloween” , Novo Amor
- “Season of the Witch” , Donovan
- “The Killing Moon” , Echo & the Bunnymen
- “Atmosphere” , Joy Division
- “Nightcall” , Kavinsky
- “Into My Arms” , Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
- “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” , Bauhaus
- “The Whole of the Moon” , The Waterboys
- “Landslide” , Fleetwood Mac
- “The Night We Met” , Lord Huron
- “Wake Me Up When September Ends” , Green Day
- “No Surprises” , Radiohead
- “Everybody Hurts” , R.E.M.
- “The Sound of Silence” , Simon & Garfunkel
- “This Must Be the Place” , Talking Heads
Some of these songs are spooky. Some are sad. Some are about memory, distance, or wanting to get back to a place that doesn’t exist anymore.
That’s kind of the point.
Music can sit with us without demanding that we explain every damn thing. Sometimes we need a song to say, “Yeah, I know. This is hard,” and then let us breathe for three minutes.
Maybe we get to make a new version
I don’t want to end this by pretending Halloween will suddenly feel the way it did when the kids were little.
It probably won’t.
Some seasons are over. Some people are gone. Some traditions don’t survive because the people who made them meaningful have changed or moved away or died. That hurts. We don’t need to decorate the hurt with glitter and call it growth.
But maybe the night doesn’t have to be ruined either.
Maybe I can light one candle for the people I miss.
Maybe I can make their favorite food, play the songs they loved, or put out one decoration that reminds me of them. Maybe I can text my kids without making them feel guilty: “I miss our old Halloweens. Hope you’re doing okay.” Maybe I can invite somebody over who is also tired of pretending to be festive.
Maybe I can turn off the porch light.
Maybe I can leave it on.
There isn’t one correct way to get through October 28th. We’re allowed to make the days before Halloween smaller. We’re allowed to skip the party, watch something gentle, take a walk before dark, practice a little yoga, or sit in the quiet and let the feelings move through us. Breathe N Bounce has always been about making room for the honest version of the conversation, not the polished one.
And maybe next year will feel different.
Or maybe it won’t.
Either way, I can stop punishing myself for not being thrilled. I can remember that missing the old magic means the old magic mattered. I can let myself grieve the empty porch without deciding that my life is empty.
The kids grew up. People moved on. Some people are gone.
And I’m still here.
The porch light is still on.
