In my experience, the end of Halloween festivities marks a period of reflection for many of us — or, at the very least, calls for a major debrief session with the girls.
What is this cosmic phenomenon that undoubtedly marks fall as the season of life-changing events? Does Halloween really produce such radical shifts in the course of our lives, or is something deeper at work in the fabric of Gen Z culture we’ve yet to uncover?
This week’s column will explore a theory on the truth behind the mystical power of Halloweekend, inspired by a pivotal conversation I had with my older sister, Sarah.
Now, before the title misleads you into thinking I’m about to preach about the benefits of sobriety, let me assure you this column will never fit into the holier-than-thou subsect of the self-help genre.
My sister and I love to be social. But we are similar in that we like to interrogate our behaviours. Maybe not change them, but at the very least, make sense of the patterns we are drawn to. For context, Sarah is eight years my senior, and for much of our lives, we didn’t mix well. Even though I wanted to bite her head off at the time, all the people who told me it would get better as we grew up were right. The space between our life experiences shrank and we were able to find more common ground. Of course, her sharp witty comebacks still erk me at times, and I often compare her successes to mine, as younger siblings often do. That being said, I can wholeheartedly say that this woman is all I want to be. She is hilarious, fiercely loyal and protective of her peace while embodying the work-hard play-hard mentality.
Wait but Maryn, how does this relate to Halloween?. Well, I would assume that like Sarah and I, many people reading this have experienced nights out ending in tears, or bad cases of “hangxiety” the morning after. At a particularly emotional time in my life, where the ratio of good nights to teary nights was not in my favour, I opened up to my sister, and I think we may have discovered something in both of us that might resonate with venerators of the ‘powers’ of Halloweekend.
I learned, joyously, that alcohol is a depressant! Shocker. I think this is quite a well-known fact for many people who choose to engage in social (casual) binge drinking in university, but at the time, this was news to me. That fact alone isn’t what struck me the hardest. It was Sarah’s reflection on the scientific consequence of poisoning ourselves into a vulnerable state of momentary bliss which has stuck with me these past couple of years. She said that because alcohol is somehow seemingly chemically composed to yank our deepest feelings out of us, you just have to try to find some awareness of what you’re getting yourself into on a big night out.
Have you ever known in your gut that the night ahead of you likely won’t end well? Maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but some voice inside of you foreshadows how it will end. I’ve certainly been there and still marched willingly into my own trap.
This, my friends, is where the crux of my theory lies. The internet (at least my own TikTok algorithm) feeds us this hyperbolic narrative around Halloween. It will change your life! But if drugs, alcohol and parties we pack our schedules with for an entire weekend are the key attracting features of these events, aren’t we watering the seeds of our own demise?
And that’s not to say that good things can’t come out of Halloween festivities! You might have met your soulmate, twin flame or any of these archetypes of people we perpetually long for as social beings. I am not telling you to avoid these events, because God knows I will attend them for years to come.
My only ask is that next year, before you fall into the state of ignorant bliss the internet urges us to take on during these spooky celebrations, check in with yourself. As my big sister said, that’s really all you can do.
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