Alexander the Great

Last night was a game changer. Halloween. Over the years, I've bounced back and forth between hating it and loving the damned day (Day of the  Damned? Who the "hell" knows!) "HATED IT," said in an obnoxious sniff, had been my mantra for a good four or five years. I was a Halloween agnostic and was not having any of it. "I hate the ghosts!" and "What's with the month of horror flicks invading my tv time?!?" Is there a Halloween Scrooge somewhere? I'm thinking the reason I don't know the answer to that question is because I could have, at some point, actually been him. In any case, somewhere over the past year, the fun of it all inexplicably seemed to find its way back into my world & I was once again ready to dish out candy and at least be part of the night. 

Our street is known to be a busy one on Halloween night. People bring their kids from all different parts of the city for a night of going door-to-door in a place that they can be sure is safe. I'll call myself out right here and now by saying that, since moving in a few years ago, I've dreaded this night every year. "The traffic! The strangers! Who's knocking on our door?!?" Truly, I was the worst. Paging 

Hal O'Scrooge....

By dusk this year, though, Jon and I had changed our m.o. at least a little bit and parked ourselves in chairs at the end of our driveway. Though ready to at least wave, that in no way meant there was room for door knocking or bell ringing. We had our bowl of candy filled to the brim and drinks filled pretty close to it. We sat back and waited after seeing the first few early birds making their way up the street from a distance, pick up truck following slowly behind with its hazard lights flashing. "Buckle up! It's going to be a long night!" I said and laughed with Jon about the fact that we're both such hermits, the thought of even interacting with people we know makes us both break out in hives.  *sip, sip, gulp*

Here they came, some in groups, some with a sibling or two and sometimes more. We braced for impact. "Happy Halloween!" I said as a small little one made his (her?) way up to  where we were perched. Silence. Covered in a skeleton costume, this little tiny thing was with a man who quietly said, "Thank you. Happy Halloween to you, too. " I looked back to the masked munchkin standing mute beside him and asked, "What's your name?" Again, silence. "His name is Alexander," the man answered. "Well, Alexander, your costume is awesome," I said gesturing with my hand so I could show the whole thing to Jon. At that moment, instead of reaching for the heaping pile of candy beside him, Alexander silently put his hand in mine and shook it. Now it was my turn to be mute. I stared into the big, brown eyes peeking out from behind that mask and saw something I never expected to find....the meaning of Halloween. After a few long seconds, I finally had enough of a voice to say, "Alexander, would you like some candy?" He quietly nodded. "Please. Help yourself, sweet boy." With that, he reached his tiny little hand into that huge Halloween bowl....and took a single piece of candy for himself. "Say thank you, Alexander," his father coaxed. Still silent, Alexander started to make his way back to the street with his father. "Wait! Take more! Here!" I said, stumbling over myself and my words and reaching for as much candy as I could grab. "Thank you, thank you so much," the man said with a gentle smile as he took the extra pieces from my hands. "Happy Halloween," I said as they walked back towards the street. Again, the gentle smile, "You too, ma'am. Thank you again." I just stared after them with a single thought: "I'm not a ma'am, sir, you don't have to call me ma'am..."

As quickly as that moment came and went, I will never forget it. Instead, it's with me forever and I'll toast it every year. Here's to Halloween, friends. Here's to Halloween and to Alexander-- Alexander the Great! With a tiny little hand and a huge presence, a silent little boy reminded me that Halloween is a holiday for kids of all ages and that it was time to get off my high horse, join the fun and start handing out the love. 

Reunited and It Feels So...Good?

It's reunion time and I've been reminiscing. No, not about my own glory days but the days surrounding my high school reunions. For my 10th, I was pregnant and had ZERO intention of moooving about the crowd, waving a flipper at my first love (who would never have gone anyway). Instead, I skipped town with my husband and hightailed it to the perfect spot for any pregnant woman to relax. Vegas.

For my 20th, I was ready and IN.VOLVED. Planning committee, glitter committee, picture committee, committee of reformed (or maybe not) dorks...these were all things I had assigned myself in my head. In reality I did help and was ready for that perfect moment in the perfect lighting of seeing the ex, flipping the (bird?) hair and toasting my high school years alongside my closest high school friends. Things did not quite turn out that way...

My 20th reunion is actually the reason I landed on Facebook. I came straight home from our first planning meeting and created a profile after an afternoon spent cluelessly watching my friends navigate from one person to another. The first thing I did once my profile was up was message a friend that, yes, I had just searched that girl we'd known back in the day and, good God almighty, YES! She absolutely 1,000% looked just like a hooker. Did I mention that my message was written on my friend's public page (still then referred to as a "wall") and that the (albeit alleged) hooker in question, whom I had also "friended", could see it? First Facebook fail...3 points. Swoosh.

From that point on, it was all uphill. Literally. The more I thought about my reunion, the more incline I added on the treadmill. I think I was determined to weigh exactly 9 pounds when I walked through the door (backlit with wind in my hair, of course). My husband thought I had lost my mind. "Seriously?" he asked one day as he changed out of his Office Man costume. "You see these people all the time. Why are you freaking out about a reunion?" He had a point. My circle of friends, though it's grown, does include many of the same faces from high school. With this in mind, I looked at him and gave him the answer I knew he was looking for: "Whatever!"

During those hours logged on the treadmill, I swear I experienced some unnamed form of post traumatic stress disorder/Tourette's Syndrome. I would be gliding along to Erasure and, out of nowhere, recall some horrendously embarrassing thing that happened 20 years before. More than once, I said, "NO!" (or worse) out loud and cringed, physically ducking the memory. These memories came at me left & right until one day when I found myself bobbing & weaving one particularly awful mental movie that had me gearing up for soccer practice my junior year. I went for one day (one day!) b/c I liked the uniforms and there were no tryouts. Ever the athlete, I drove to school in my shiny new cleats (I said it). Again, the ex-love figures into the picture. As I hobbled my way to practice, I saw him across the dew-kissed grass of the field. In my ever-present state of teen angst, I waved casually just as he and his friends burst out laughing. "Are those new?" one of them asked. "No!" I said scowling their way as I clip-clopped past them, head held as high as possible for the amount of pain my feet were in. PTSD (Post Teen Stress Disorder) is where I drew the line. I had to change my focus.

Cue ethereal music: Jon.

Jon is my husband and, just as I would for him, the man would go to the ends of the earth for me. "Abso-freaking-lutely not," he said as I stared at him in disbelief. "I am not turning into a cyclist so that you can have someone to ride with. Have you ever seen those people? They wear neon...and spandex... and a helmet. On the street! Like it's normal! All that's missing is a clown nose! No. No, not doing it. No." We bought our bikes that Saturday. I compromised at the clothing after he threatened to wear a puffy shirt, black socks and sandals just to prove that you can ride a bike and not look like a, well...you get the drift.

As reunion day drew near, I found myself getting into a little bit of a groove. I was feeling better about honestly my butt but I'll say it was about the new inner me. Exercise had provided an unexpected side boost of energy, Facebook had put me back in touch with many faces I hadn't seen in years and I was actually looking forward to laughing with old friends about what I realized was the time when we all made silly mistakes. We grew up in those halls. How could we not make mistakes in them?

The day finally arrived and I was happy to be going. I made plans to meet up with friends once we got there and  I was looking forward to a fun night. The night was cool, the music was fun and my friends' faces made the night even better. Everyone was there. Everyone, that is, except my ex. He wasn't. But Jon was. As I looked at him, standing there wearing a name tag he'd made that said "Jon --aka 'Shannon's Husband'", my whole picture was complete. I've always known it but you know those times when it's just a little bit more crystal clear? Yeah. This was one of those nights. Just as he always had been, Jon was there. And we danced all night.