Queremos Halloween

By the time I was ten, my parents finally, slowly released the vise-grip "no" on Halloween. I was allowed to go ask for candy. "Queremos Halloween," I remember chanting over and over. I was cautiously happy at my participation in this decadent holiday, but secretly wondered whether I was doing something wrong. Regret seeped in for all the possible costumes I could have worn in years gone by. I don't even remember what I ended up being for my first Halloween. I do remember a schpeal about how I was not celebrating a pagan holiday, I was still honoring God. All I really wanted was to be someone else, though. To have someone else's life. Don a cap, a cape a cloak and transform my oppresive, paternalistic life into a free and wild existence. I imagined a horse running, frothy through a field. This image slowly died as I realized I could never embody this horse. It's power was not mine, I had none. I did get candy, though.