I took the feeling that I was having and wanted to share it with everyone and anyone I knew I wanted to shout it from the mountain tops, but instead, I manifested my feelings into giving to others. So I threw a party. For anyone knows me they know I A) Love a good party, B) Love to entertain, C) Love welcoming in friends an family and 4) Love the details that a party encompasses. I feel compelled in most of my daily life to be an all or nothing kind of girl and to be the more the merrier type. So it didn’t phase me when I found myself inviting everyone under the sun to the party. Even friends I hadn’t spoken to in a while. Why not? Everyone loves a good party and mine were pretty freakin fun!

It was Halloween, one of my most favorite holidays ever. Why? When else can you dress up, put on weird make up and be someone or something else for a day. I spend most of my life trying to let my guard down, to reduce my harsh everything bagel exterior (crusty on the outside, warm & mushy on the inside), to let people in and be softer or vulnerable, but on Halloween you can do it under the guise of pure “Dress Up” Like when you were a kid. Do you remember trying on your mom’s shoes or your dad’s favorite sweater? Holding his pipe and walking around with a deep voice trying to be someone else.

I think most people spend their days already acting like something they’re not. I on the other hand try desperately to be my true self in all facets of the word and in any situation. I do not change who I am just because I meet new people or am in a new place. I am genuinely me. Sometimes people love it, sometimes they hate it, sometimes they are in awe of it and sometimes shocked by it, but no matter how they act or react to it, it’s me. That’s all I can be. I try my best every day to be a better me than the day before. That is a conscious effort. It doesn’t just happen. It is honed and cultivated and nurtured with love and kindness to myself. I have to be able to be me in all aspects of my life to live my truth. It may not be the same truth as someone else and that’s ok. But it is solely mine and for that I am thankful.

However, Halloween….that’s my chance to break out of the norm. To search my brain for a costume that suits however I am feeling at that particular time. The Halloween after Jolly Guy and I broke up I was a dead bride. Kind of like my version on what relationships and marriage resembled for me at the time. I took one of my real wedding dresses and put it on, I teased my hair to look all crazy, I put dark circles around my eyes and fake cuts and bruises all over me. Then at the last second, I hesitated to do this, but I did it anyway and threw fake blood all over the front of the dress. I’m not wearing it again! That Halloween I went to the bagel store and scared a kid and a woman asked me “That’s not your real wedding dress is it?” I giggled to myself because it was a little out there to do what I did, but I responded with “Why yes, it’s one of them”

This Halloween I thought what better to be then the psychological thriller of Black Swan. It was apropos you know? If you know the movie at a’s based on hallucinations that are happening within the mind of a prima ballerina. Doesn’t everyone have these to some extent? We hear things incorrectly, we interpret things wrong, we manifest things to be the way our insecurities allow them to be and sometimes they end up being real and more times than not we have gotten ourselves all worked up for nothing. But I thought it was a great outfit and I loved the thought of it. So the preparations for another epic party were underway. The devils always in the details.