By Emma Bracken
As Halloween falls upon us, there is something that college students all seem to be reaching for to survive the season. Whether it’s clinging onto childhood traditions or keeping your childhood favorites close to your heart, there seems to be a desperation for nostalgia throughout the season. For college students, many are spending time away from our families and hometown festivities for the first time. This leaves us searching for something to get that same feeling of magic that has escaped us alongside our adolescence.
Being a college student is the challenge of walking the line between childhood and proper adulthood, and for many it is a rough adjustment. Especially around the holidays, we feel like we’re missing something; family, hometown friends and the magic that came along with it. Nostalgia can be uncomfortable and comforting at the same time, and to make sense of it we are seeking to recreate old memories to fit in the new shape that our lives have taken on. While the whole family might not be able to gather around, we can feel them beside us watching the movies we grew up watching together. We can taste the comforting familiarity of a fall family recipe, or light the same candles that burned in the place we called home. Though no moment will ever return to us exactly, in carving out new memories imbued with the past, we can hold onto what’s important while embracing what lies ahead.
One way college students are seeming to recreate that magic is by dressing as characters from their favorite childhood movies or TV shows. Trendy and niche costumes can be fun, but there is something undeniably comforting about dressing as a classic character you grew up with, and connecting with your peers as you see your own fond childhood memories reflected in theirs. Sophomore Ella House describes Halloween growing up as her favorite night of the year because she could dress up and let loose. There seems to be a sort of escapism in wearing costumes and assuming a new identity for the night, to relieve yourself of the pressures and duties of your real life. Perhaps, Halloween is even a time for us to escape into former versions of ourselves.
“Every year I chase that feeling I had as a kid,” House said. “Recently I’ve found myself dressing up as characters from my childhood. Like this year, my friends and I are dressing as ‘The Wizard of Oz’.”
For many of us, there is no place like home. As we are slowly rebuilding what home means to us here in Fayetteville, there are certainly pieces of childhood that we are trying to bring along with us.
Every year we see the revival of classics for Halloween costumes, if not “The Wizard of Oz”, you’re bound to see some Mad Hatters, Tinkerbells, or Scooby Doos. Not only do we feel comforted by the characters from our childhood, but they are a way for us to connect and relate with one another. When you’re dressed as one of these characters or another iconic figure we all grew up with, you know that people will compliment your costume and make conversation. The loneliness or homesickness becomes lightened when you realize everyone around you is feeling the same, and we reach for the same things to get through the season.
You might expect college students to treat the Halloween season as just an excuse for partying, but many students have other ideas this October to get them in the spirit.
“I’d rather watch old films and make cookies than go out and party,” first year Callie Kent said,
Kent reminisced on the magical movies like “Halloweentown” and “Coraline” that brought her happiness as a child, and how rewatching them makes her feel like a kid again. A common theme in both of the examples Kent has listed as well as many other Halloween movies, we see a young protagonist escape into some magical, spooky world different from their own. It seems that not only does watching the movies bring us comfort because they are familiar, but because we are living through the main character; coping with nostalgia is all about delving back into a world you’ve lost and long for. At Halloween time, that world happens to be candy filled and adorned with faux spider webs, haunted hallways and glowing jack-o’-lanterns.
Ella Curtis, sophomore, describes this time of year as an opportunity to explore creative possibilities and welcome seasons of change. The source of this is the nostalgia of autumn, and the memories she made with her family around Halloween time, Curtis said. Just like the leaves, she explains that moments dry up and fall away, but we get to change into something too.
Just as we change into a new identity for a night, the world takes on new colors in October. It is a season of change all around, yet we find the threads that are the same and hold onto them. Even when the weather gets colder than we remember, or we are surrounded by new faces, the magic of the season is intact.