HallowTeen
It’s that time of the year again, when everything is terrifying and teenagers are up late at night, sometimes even until the early morning hours. That’s right, it’s midterms! Oh, yeah, also Halloween. Back in August, we all started seeing the black and orange decorations lining the aisles of stores and the pumpkin-flavored-everything filling the shelves, all of this leading up to the magical night where we … wait, what do we do?
As teenagers, Halloween comes with many tough decisions about the level of maturity we desire to employ. Some may choose the standard celebration that has been our Halloween tradition since childhood and go door-to-door demanding candy. However, for those of us who cannot bear the disapproving looks adults bestow upon us for taking the candy that they intended for cute, pumpkin-clad children that Trick-or-Treat with their parents, this activity may not be the right choice.
When I think of teenagers on Halloween, my mind immediately goes to the mischievous teenagers that would run around under the cover of night TP-ing houses and smash my prized jack-o-lantern. Although I have never actually met a teenager that engages in this activity, they must exist, because my jack-o-lantern certainly didn’t smash itself, and I have a hard time imagining an adult going around and smashing pumpkins (other than the members of Smashing Pumpkins). If this happens to be your idea of a good time, perhaps you should reevaluate why you enjoy crushing the happiness of young children, because that blow is lasting. I myself am still bitter.
When determining the level of maturity to take on for Halloween, a question encountered by many is whether or not they should attend a classic costume party and get “turnt.” In these adolescent years, we find ourselves in that place between being viewed as a child and finally being thought of as an adult. So, naturally, it would be appealing for us inbetweeners to take this opportunity to establish ourselves as adults once and for all by doing “adult things.” As a teenager who finds parties to be mildly terrifying, I’m not claiming to be an authority on them, and I’m sure there is some value in spending time with peers who you may not normally talk to if it weren’t for this festive gathering. However, “adult things”doesn’t have to be synonymous with “illegal things.” Maybe spend your Halloween doing other adult things, like taxes. Nothing is more terrifying than taxes.
But maybe there’s nothing wrong with spending your Halloween night embracing your status as an inbetweener. This inbetween stage in our lives will be short lived, so we should take advantage of it and spend the night enjoying any festivities we can get our hands on. Though the place for us teenagers during this holiday is not one that is easily found, our proximity to acclaimed haunted houses provides an outlet for those of us who dream of living out their nightmares, and you can’t go more than a few miles without running into a movie theater that is sure to be screening that creepy doll movie. There are definitely many Halloween options that are more widely accepted for us hoodlums. Whatever you do this Halloween, be sure to enjoy the relief of getting through midterms, burn your notes in a bonfire, and for god’s sake, don’t smash any poor kid’s jack-o-lantern!
