Halloween

My 12 year old is standing in the kitchen dressed up as a Pink Lady. She is sweet, she is so innocent, well adjusted. She has a life full of abundance and privilege.

I started smoking at 12. I look at her and try to imagine her lighting up, like Sandra Dee at the end of Grease. It blows my mind. It is absurd.

I was not well adjusted, not even trying to be good.

I knew I was bad.

Halloween in the traditional sense is a day when we can more easily contact spirits and ancestors. It is also a day to fend off evil, to protect ourselves from malevolent forces.

I pause to consider today in that way. What forces and spirits I want to draw close, those guides out in front of me and within me, and what I want to ward off.

But I think all of it just wants to be seen, loved, set free.

A friend of mine and I have been discussing, belonging, goodness, and our culture of purity and performance.

I was not bad at 12, or 16, or 20, or ever. I performed a role I was pushed into. I surrendered to what I was told I was. I performed, and my performance lived. I embraced it. I wore a mask. Badness.

I perform now too. I wear a mask. It is one of goodness. Good mom, good citizen, repectful, trying hard to please, trying hard not to offend. Being good.

Neither mask in the end serves my truth, they both stifle and oppress.

I am conflicted and confused in all this. I am my own labyrinth. I think maybe we all are. We are complex, so much bigger than simplistic notions of good or bad.

I carry that with me today. I walk with it, dance with it, light a candle to it. May it all rise to its highest, most free form.