Halloween Ghosts: Hauntings From Our Own Past

As another October materializes, my neighborhood is being transformed once again into a scary place with glowing eyes, severed hands, and skeletal remains draped in torn black gauze. Seemingly nice, normal people suddenly turn their energies and ingenuity (along with a few plastic props) to compete with each other to see who can make the most haunting and entertaining effects.

I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten such a scare from an unexpected burst of loud, eerie laughter as I pass by a house close to the sidewalk, before smiling and suddenly realizing that it is the spookiest time of the year again.

Halloween is the time when we put away our fears of darkness and death, and invite scary vibes into our lives for the pure fun of it. Some brave souls set up tombs and graveyards right on their front lawns while others post goblins and witches at their front doors to welcome trick-or-treaters.

We love Halloween because we know it is staged. Its spookiness is created to entertain us and give us a chuckle, and its scenes are mere theatrical settings. In truth, we enjoy the thrill of a good haunting as long as it is not related to some trauma from the past.

The longer we live, the more regret and pain we carry within ourselves. When our relationships sour, our lives don’t go our way, or we make a horrific blunder, we lament and our conscience, if we are lucky enough to have one, suffers. Depending on their importance, we either cast our miseries and disappointments into the void and try not to think about them, or obsess about our traumas and mistakes, letting them sit on our chests like demonic succubi, sucking the life out of us.

Eventually, what has taunted us will be transformed into phantoms to come back and haunt us. And, if they are associated with lifelong pain or regret, these “ghosts” will resurface often and fiercely. Charles Dickens created the perfect example of this with Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

While it is impossible to avoid pain, regrets, and mistakes in life, we can certainly learn something through Scrooge, and how he manages to transform himself in his old age. Acknowledging that we are mortal beings susceptible to hurt, temptation, and bad judgement may be the first step in stopping our past from haunting us. And, as soon as we realize that we’ve done something wrong, correcting ourselves right away may be a wise move.

So, for this Halloween and maybe every other day, live well and do the right things in the present to prevent our past from haunting us in the future.

By Qin Sun Stubis

You can always reach me at qstubis@gmail.com, or please visit me at QinSunStubis.com. You can find a copy of my book, Once Our Lives, online at Amazon.com