I'm not here today. I'm off talking emotions at Birdykins. Be sure to check me out. But not before reading Lindsay's guest post, which is almost as fabulous... okay just as fabulous as that awesome Pumpkin Spice Latte you people love so much.

Oh. Hello there new and unexplored corner of the interwebs. ‘Tis the season for blog swaps. So, here I am making myself cozy in Katie’s. You all are probably disappointed, nope no biting wit and hilarity will ensue today. So, brew yourself a cup of tea and curl up in a comfy chair. It’s finally Fall, the end of October and we all know what that means…

The weather has been mild here in Portland. Back home in the 'Fax it has already taken a turn for the worse. There the precipitation and temperature band together to encase the cars in thin layers of ice. It rains and when it doesn't rain I imagine the sky gray and the wind biting. Pumpkins and other gourds stand watch on doorsteps and in windows. Skeletons, bats, spiders and members of the undead flail in doorways or hang limply from walls. Used clothing and dollar stores overflow with frantic shoppers looking for the perfect accessory to make their disguise complete. Trampled leaves gather in crowds on the sides of streets. Everything is discarded, or seems to be. It's the end of October; time for Halloween.

People say Valentines Day is the ultimate couples holiday. It's the one that gets all the press. All the romance and heart-shaped cutout love. No one cries half an ice cream carton deep for Halloween. No one celebrates an anti-Halloween in support of being alone. They should. They would if they knew what I know. Halloween is the secret couples holiday, dressed up in candy and costumes. In every horror movie scream that burrows you into the shoulder next to you and every chocolate smeared kiss. Crouched hidden and silent in the bushes, Halloween waits to pounce and break your heart.

The year before last for the first time in my life I was part one of a two-part costume. I was half of a whole. I was the joke and he was the punchline and we belonged together. We made sense together. More sense than either of us made on our own. Last year we took it easy, filled a bowl with candy in preparation for the odd trick-or-treater and snuggled in to watch scary movies. This year I'm in a strange city without a costume or any party I would want to go to. This year I have no disguise, no heavy makeup or stories to tell. This year I am mask-less and the holiday I am dreading is in October not February.

The truth is every day is a costume party. I put on my best face and paint on a smile. The "I'm okay" smile. The "I hardly miss him at all" smile. I fill my pillow case with new dreams and distractions instead of candy and count down the days until this holiday passes. See, I'm not one for dressing up and neither was he. I didn't bother with the construction of a night-long lie; I spent time maintaining the week or year or life-long lies, instead. These days every day is a lie in subtle and discouraging ways.

Maybe it's not about love and loss. Maybe I hate Halloween so much because it reminds me how easy it is to be something you're not. How many layers of bullshit we have to dig through before we reach the truth, finally. How many secrets we carry in our back pockets patted absent mindedly to assure they're still there. Dressing up and faking it is easy. We should have a holiday for the opposite, instead. A holiday where we tell nothing but the truth and are nothing but our most stripped down and naked selves... cutesy marketable images aside. Or. Or Maybe I'm just too tired to put together a costume, any costume, not even my every day one.

This Halloween I'm going to just be broken down and sad-hearted me. What are you going to be?