Candles, costumes, decorations, horror films, chilling with the dead…

It’s Halloween baby!!!

My love of this holiday has always been there, but it’s increased with age which might be odd but is not surprising given that having been beaten to a pulp by life, us older millennials tend to find comfort in child-like things.

Also, I’m quite spiritual so anything involving spirits immediately piques my interest. Um, except Ouija boards – I don’t mess with those. Never have, never will.

Anyhoo, as a family we did not celebrate Halloween and I was not allowed to go ‘trick or treating’ because sending ‘yuh pickney fi go beg sweetie from strangers’ (for the non-patois speaking among you: ‘sending your child to beg strangers for sweets’) was, and probably still isn’t something many people of Caribbean heritage want any part of.

Fair.

But I still love Halloween. I’ve come to loath Christmas and I tolerate my birthdays, but I genuinely get excited about this weird little holiday which is really just about celebrating the dead. I don’t mind celebrating the dead. Dead people don’t scare me, but so many other things do.

We’re living in terrifying times. Dead people aren’t responsible for genocide and famine. Ghosts don’t kill people in a place of worship. Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn’t blame immigrants for his problems – at least I don’t think he does…

There are much scarier things than Halloween, and while there are so many terrifying things that seem to be beyond our immediate control, there are others that we face, and even conquer all the time without even realising.

Around 2017/18 without warning or consent and triggered by yet another metaphorical kick in the face (I’ve been metaphorically kicked in the face by many people in my lifetime!)  I embarked on a journey of deep soul searching and personal development that forced me to confront many painful things I’d been ignoring. It was frightening, depressing, lonely, and at times unbearable but ultimately a good thing. I got through it, learned a lot from it and I am, I think, better off as a result.

I’ve had three pulmonary embolisms since 2021. Given that many people don’t survive one, that’s quite a feat on my part. Going from only ever visiting people in hospital to being a patient – especially during a friggin’ global pandemic – scared the crap out of me, but I’m still here.

In 2022 I lost both of my grandmothers within 5 months of each other. I’m not scared of the dead but I’m not a fan of death (I know, that’s weird but I have never claimed not to be!). Before they died, we lost a great aunt, after they died, we lost an uncle. There was far too much death around that time, and it was awful, but we got through it.

And on a less morbid note, earlier this year I left the comfort and familiarity of my old job where I’d been for just over five years, to work elsewhere which was scary, especially since I was going to be working in a sector I’d never worked in before. ‘Elsewhere’ is nice but sometimes it scares me. As someone who isn’t easily intimidated by people there are some very intimidating people there. Not in a ‘they might break my legs’ way but in a ‘These people are ridiculously intelligent and accomplished’ way. As someone whose dream is to get paid stupid amounts of money to write stories about the people who reside in my head, every day when I enter the building and my card still works I’m amazed that they allow me to work with grown-ups with knowledge and experience of things so far removed from my daily life like hedge funds,  global real estate, and private equity.   I recently learned about something called the ‘Modigliani-Miller theorem”. Actually, ‘learned’ is an exaggeration because I still can’t quite explain what it is but – and this is how my mind works – I remember it because I like the name ‘Modigliani’. This, ladies, gents and non-binary peeps is who these smart people are receiving emails from!

Anyway, the point is, we experience scary things all the time but very rarely give ourselves credit for facing and sometimes even conquering our fears. But we should reflect on these things because doing so will make us feel braver and more resilient which will in turn make us more likely to confront more things that frighten us.

Even if you’re not a fan of Halloween you can use this month to reflect on the fears and challenges you’ve faced this year and how well you’ve handled them. I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Then maybe you can look at areas that you haven’t confronted yet but that you’d like to.

A therapist once told me that fear stands for ‘Fuck Everything And Run’. When I finally stopped laughing, I thought about how clever that really was. Fear can literally lead to missed opportunities. We think we’re avoiding something that feels uncomfortable when in reality we might be running away from something that may actually be very good for us. When I think about all the wonderful people I’ve met since I stopped being so shy, and the things I’ve accomplished by taking a few risks, I could kick myself for ever giving in to fear. But we don’t know what we don’t know until we know it. And since you’re reading this, you now know it.

This Halloween be brave. Do the thing that scares you a bit. You’ll thank yourself later.