I am an avid believer in Halloween. I don’t know what it is about October 31 that makes me so ecstatic. Maybe it’s dressing up in a costume or maybe it’s the movies that make you shield your eyes because you don’t know what’s going to be around the corner. Who knows, it could even be the free Chipotle Boo-ritos.

When I was in the fourth grade, my Halloween fever was at an all time high. My parents took me to the costume store like they did every year, but this time was going to be different. I went on a mission, and successfully found the scariest vampire costume of them all. Somehow this wasn’t enough for my young self. I then begged my parents to let me get fake fangs, fake blood, white face and a long black wig to complete my epic costume.

In elementary school, one of the best days of the school year was the Halloween party when every student got to wear a costume to school all day. The morning of the Halloween party, I woke up 30 minutes early so my parents could help me get into full make-up. I wanted to look so scary that Dracula himself would run at the sight of me.

My parents caked on the white face paint, carefully snapped on my fangs and made the fake blood ooze out of the corners of my mouth. Then came the long messy black wig that fell down to my hips in tangled strands. After my transformation, I didn’t look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t want to spoil the illusion of myself a vampire by seeing my reflection.

Practically shaking with excitement, I opened the door to my fourth grade classroom. I was anticipating the whole class coming up to me, begging to find out how I got such a realistic, amazing costume. I couldn’t wait to see the other kids attempts to be scary.

When I opened the door, my mouth dropped in shock. No one looked scary. All of the other little girls were dressed as princess, fairies or some other sickening pink fluffy excuse for a costume. For those of you that have seen the movie Mean Girls, I was basically Cady Heron in the scene at her first ever Halloween party as a teenager.

For a moment, I was truly humiliated. Why did my parents let me come to school like this? Why didn’t they make me be Tinker Bell or something like I was the year before?

Then, an unexpected change of events happened. Everyone in the class came running up to me saying, “Whoa, Aly! You look awesome!” “You’re so scary looking, is that real blood?!”

The moral of this story is that it’s okay to be who you are, even if it is different than everyone else. Even if who you are, is a scary little ugly vampire.