My son Matthew asked if he could go trick or treating with his friend who lives nearly an hour away. It was a school night and Mom wasn’t going to get home until the time he’d really have to leave, and…and I said I’m going to have to think about it. Before I might have just said it was too far away (read: too much trouble) and left it at that, but as I’ve been finalizing my memoir, The Troubles, I’ve been making a few changes.
I thought The Troubles would be the story I needed to get out of the way so I could move forward; let go of the past, so to speak. But I’ve come to realize The Troubles isn’t about the past. It reminded me that what they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is absolutely true. It reminded me, too, that life is about building memories. So I eventually told Matthew he could go.
Along the way Matthew asked me why I had said yes. I replied, “Because we either do the usual or we do something you can look back on and say I remember the time…” I smiled. Halloween 2013 would definitely be one for the record books as throngs of people were out in his friend’s neighborhood, far more than are usually out in ours, and so many of them congratulated Matthew on his Slender Man costume and cheered that he had added his own touches – the bowler hat, mustache, monocle, and black umbrella – all very British, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was part of me in there. It really was especially fun to see girls his age squealing with excitement asking if he’d mind getting his picture taken with them.
On the way home Matthew thanked me and said he’d had a great time, but I already knew that. “I did too,” I said. He then told me of a student at his school who showed up to class in a really cool scarecrow costume. “He got in trouble,” he added. “They announced on Monday that no costumes were allowed.”
“I don’t think he should have gotten into trouble,” I replied. “Sent home to change perhaps.”
“He did it because of YOLO.”
I chuckled and said, “Carpe Diem. Seize the day.”
“Latin,” Matthew replied before I could decide if Robin William’s line from Dead Poet’s Society that sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone applied.
“You want to know why I said yes? Because each day should be extraordinary. You have to enjoy what you have while you can instead of saying I should have.” That’s something I didn’t understand until recently. As a kid I thought I had all the time in the world. Now I understand time is running out faster each day. The Troubles is filled with extraordinarily good moments I didn’t appreciate because they’d been overshadowed by memories and events I tried so hard to forget. I’m glad, now, that they bothered me enough 
to go back and really dig through them, get them sorted out, for that’s how I discovered The Troubles to be a road map of choices I can look on not so much to see how I ended up where I am but why I didn’t end up quite where I expected. Some say that life itself is a series of personal choices, and that we get what we earn (or deserve). There’s some truth to that, but our lives are not made up of only our choices but also the choices of other people. My son would not have gone trick or treating with Jamea had I not chosen to let him do so.
Now we both have extraordinary memories of Halloween 2013. 😉
Very good, Sir. Your Mother would be proud.