On Halloween And Being A Goth At Heart

I've had a lot of people tell me that I am a Goth at heart. Pretty much all my friends have said it or something like it at some point in our friendship and when you hear something that many times from the people who you chose to have closest in your life, you end up believing it.

"Goth at heart" is probably kind of a hard thing to picture. There is a very set idea of the physical convention of Goth involving dark makeup, body mod, and black clothes, usually anachronistic, but I don't really look like this. I have dark hair and fairly light skin but it's genetic. I hardly ever wear makeup (my profile pic is a weird exception) or do anything to my fingernails aside from cutting them. I have no tattoos, I only have pierced ears, and I mostly wear a pair of 16g black, curved, spiked barbell earrings, a little Goth but I wear them to my job at a conservative bank and no one comments on them. I often wear a ring in the shape of a snake; occasionally I wear a necklace. The vast majority of my clothes are black but they are plain shirts, skirts, or just blue jeans. I even own a red shirt and a purple shirt that I wear to work. My shoes are mostly flats or boots. Although I have had a lot of people tell me that I shouldn't wear black everyday, I'm really not intimidating looking at all. To a lot of people, my tendency toward wearing black and white all the time is seen more as "artsy" than Goth or punk. Old ladies smile at me on the street at the same time that people with 0g piercings view me as someone who may listen to the same music as them.

And yet, I really am a Goth on the inside. I listen to Goth music and Goth-influenced music including lots of dark cabaret, steampunk, and the like and have been to shows where the entire audience is in black gowns. I like snakes almost as much as I like puppies. My biggest aspiration when I was eight years old was the become Wednesday Addams (and I totally had a crush on Raul Julia in the Addams Family movie). Walking down the street with my mom, I ran away from her to hop a fence to a cemetery and take pictures of the graves for an hour (she was unamused). I was squeeing the entire time I was in the London Dungeon. I read a lot of Poe in middle school. I used to dress up like a witch because I wanted to be one and for years kind of thought I was one. When I'm alone, I sing The Devil's Carnival as loud as I can. I don't know if I ever even really saw myself as Goth; this has just always been how I am and often with people I will forget that these are not things everyone can relate to.

None of my friends are Goth. One of my best friends Adam (responsible for new units of measurement) is the closest. He dresses like a male version of me and bought me Emilie Autumn's book last Christmas under the contingency that he could borrow it when I was done. Otherwise, I have similar music/musical tastes with a lot of my friends but I'm still seen as the Goth one. My nickname with my high school friends was "The Vampire." After watching Venture Bros., my boyfriend told me that he ships Dean and Triana because it is very personally important to him that the nerdy guy gets the Goth girl (he's not good at subtlety).

So knowing all this the fact that Halloween is my favorite holiday probably comes as no surprise but I realized this year that it's not just because it is a holiday devoted to many things I love. It's because for a few weeks during the year, the things I like all year round are liked by everyone. For a brief moment in time every year, I am not the only one who is gushing about how cute the cup with the spiderweb on it is. I'm not the only one who wants to string up ghost lights everywhere (just the only one who doesn't want to take them down eventually). Going somewhere dressed like a zombie or a vampire isn't weird even if it isn't yet Halloween day because the season itself lasts throughout practically the whole month of October. Horror movies are everywhere as are haunted hayrides and haunted houses so I can go somewhere other than Times Scare to get my fix. And don't forget the Halloween television specials, often the best episodes of any show.

For a few weeks every year, everyone taps into that little bit of Goth inside of themselves. In fact, most people at some point have their moment like I have Halloween. People who care about soccer get the World Cup where everyone (even Americans!) care about their sport and want to watch it with them. People who are into politics get a presidential election every four years where they can talk to anyone about politics for a few months. People who love theater get the Tony Awards every year where their medium is celebrated on basic television. Everyone gets their day where a large portion of the populace cares about what they love all year around and even if it is "un-Goth" of me to relish in normal people putting up ghost plushies around their house once a year, I don't care. That small sense of connectedness is a wonderful feeling. It's that feeling you get at any sort of nerdy convention or concert but it spans so much further.

Would it be better if people could admit that my skull decorations are cool no matter what season? Perhaps. On some level though, it is nice to have something that sets you apart from everyone else. Everyone has to have that thing that makes them unique but having that little side trip into a time when your interests are shared almost strengthens your love of the thing itself. It gives you someone to talk to about it if, like me, you generally don't have anyone to talk to about it the rest of the year. You can let your joy flow freely without worrying about annoying or confusing the people around you and it serves to remind you why you love it so much in the first place when you have someone else to share it with.

Alas, Halloween is over now and the political people are having their special night as I type. But my decorations aren't down yet and if I can get away with it, they won't come down until at least after Thanksgiving (and some will be moved into my room as a permanent residence).

The glow-in-the-dark spiderwebs would look lovely on my bookshelf.