My favorite childhood movie was Disney’s Halloweentown. I longed to live in a place like that. The whimsical world of Halloweentown enraptured me. In this realm, monsters were allowed to live as themselves without anyone reacting to their appearances. They could live without judgment, and no ideal beauty standards governed how anyone lived. Everyone was as happy as themselves, and they could focus on living fulfilling lives in whatever way was best for them.
Even as a child, I knew that Halloweentown was not a real place. But it never stopped me from dreaming about living there. My appearance became something I was aware of around the age of nine, and it has never stopped bothering me since. Compared to the other students in my grade school classes, I was quite overweight, and they all made sure that I knew that. The closer I got to middle school, the less anyone wanted to be my friend. No one wanted to be friends with the fat girl who cried a lot.
Then, things became even more difficult for me when one of my adult front teeth grew incredibly crooked.
I have spent so much of my life being disgusted by my smile, and I often wonder what I did to deserve to have a smile like this. I like to blame a childhood sledding accident where I split my gum open right between my two front baby teeth. Medically speaking, that makes no sense at all. But it’s been comforting to imagine it being something I can blame on a specific event rather than this tooth just being the fate I was born into.
I went from being a child who found comfort in Halloween and the promise of having one day out of the year where my conventionally unattractive appearance wouldn’t set me apart from everyone else to having a terrible Halloween after a terrible Halloween, no matter how hard I tried not to. As a child and young adult, I fielded many comments from people talking about how ugly my teeth were. But no one ever assumed they were part of a Halloween costume. The older I got, the less openly people would comment on my teeth in general. But on Halloween, the comments would pour in about whether or not they were part of a costume.
From simple questions such as “What are you supposed to be?” to people wondering if I had fake fangs (two of my teeth are also very pointy).
Every time, I had to gently let them down and let them know that I always looked like this. Sometimes, they would be kind and drop the subject or tell me that it’s cool my teeth look like fangs. But it didn’t matter because the damage had already been done. I began to dread Halloween, and it made me so sad. It was my favorite holiday, but our world’s ideal beauty standards took that from me.
If I could live in a place like Halloweentown, I could be immersed in my favorite holiday 24/7, and no one would ever look at me in disgust. No one would ask me what I was dressed up as. They would just say hello and go about their day. Strangers wouldn’t ask me if I was missing a tooth and then get uncomfortably close to my face to check and see for themselves. No one would try to book a make-up appointment with “the one with the messed-up teeth.” They would just ask for Becky.
This is why Halloweentown is so appealing to me. It’s a place without fear. It’s a place without judgment. No one is afraid of each other because they know there is no reason to fear someone different from you. They’re allowed to be authentic without worrying about being bullied or outcasted for it.
I will do my best to continue working towards building a community just like that.
Featured image via freestocks on Unsplash
