Today is Halloween, so my First Thing today is about Halloween.
When I was a kid, one of my worst memories was of Halloween. I so wish I could continue this post with a story about a long lost sibling my family never talks about who broke out of a mental institution in 1977... my last name is Myers after all, but my story isn't so elaborate.
Chicken Pox.
It was Chicken Pox. In second grade I got Chicken Pox during Halloween and I had to sit on our living room couch in my Halloween costume as all of my neighborhood friends came to the door trick-or-treating and I couldn't go. My Dad, sister and our neighbors went trick-or-treating without me.
That started my distaste for Halloween. Getting picked on all the time as a kid kind of sealed the deal for me. I hate trickery. Practical jokes are not something that you will not find me doing very often because I felt, as a kid, that they were done to me all the time. I hate feeling foolish, and I hate not being in on the joke. And being the person that I am I hate seeing other people in that same situation. Those things coupled with my super evangelical Christian teenage years made me pretty much an anti-Halloweener.
Until I met Ian. Ian loves Halloween - it's his favorite holiday of the year. This weekend we had our 7th Annual Halloween Party with a ton of friends, food, treats and drinks - LOTS of drinks.
After all that time I spent hating Halloween I've come to embrace it. Although I like the cute Halloween things far more than a horror movie, or a ghastly ghoul. I think because in some ways being with Ian has helped me relax, enjoy a night off, embrace the fun of pretend and silliness. As an improviser, these are things I have learned to do on stage, but not so much in life... Ian brings that out in me.
It's one of the ways he makes me a better person. :-)