My Last Halloween

I remember my last Trick or Treat fondly - it was a candy fest!  Bags and (garbage) bags of candy!  The last quest for Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfingers, Snickers, KitKats. Mounds, Duds, Twix and Milky Ways.  Bags of M & M's, Skittles, Reese's Pieces, Raisenettes.  I was thirteen and in seventh grade, and knew this was the last time I could pull off saying "trick or treat" with a straight face. My older sister was in high school and off with the cheerleaders while my mom took my younger brother and sister as cowgirl and cowboy around the neighborhood.  My best friend Jamie (the boy down the street that I knew since preschool) and I plotted our course.   On our bikes we could cover our entire neighborhood, and the next subdivision for at least a total of 40 to 50 streets of affluent high quality Mars, Hershey and Nestle products.  I was a hippie he was a hobo.  We made our costumes from hand me downs from our older sisters and brothers.   The booty was so good that before the sun went down had to go home to empty our pillow cases because the load was too heavy.  It felt so liberating.  No parents waiting at the sidewalk or younger siblings and friends to follow along.  We were just two kids (a hippie and a hobo) going from house to house. Total freedom to legally get as much free candy as possible!

F**k "Type A"

I took the tests in Cosmo and Working Woman - "16 Signs You Might Be Type A".  My score always rocked the charts.  Are you driven? Impatient? High Stress? Yes, yes, yes. Do you get things done?   Yes!   I wore my scarlet Type A like a badge of honor.

Writing speeches on  luncheon napkins minutes before I was to address the audience.  I never met a crisis I couldn't handle.  All that stress was 99.9% self inflicted.  There was no boss or  company requiring long hours or demanding performance, only me.  My best New Year's Resolution one year was a new mantra - "My resolution this year is to not take on any more projects".  I used that line well into December.

My family tried interventions.  My father-in-law gently broached the subject, "Sometimes, you only need what makes you happy." and my own dad saying "You don't have to be a millionaire to live like a millionaire."  Both are true.  It's not a sellout to  s l o w   d o w n.  But why does it feel like a "sell out"?

Lately, I have been practicing Bikrim Yoga.  Twenty-six poses at 104 degrees while focusing on little more than your breath.  Meditation has always been a challenge for my racing mind.  Now, I have the time to  s l o w  down and only push myself to meditate, stretch and breath for 90 minutes.  How things have changed in this encore phase of life.  And how liberating, fuck Type A!