"It's a Concept"

Have you ever fallen victim to a mental block?  No matter how hard you try to recall something in your past, the details just don't fully form in your gray matter.  I'm sure neuropsychologists would tell us it has something to do with trauma, or repression, or damage done to the brain. 

Or maybe, it's because on one fateful Halloween in 1998, you dressed like a zipper.

Let me back this story up.  My gorgeous gal pal, P.I.C., general badass of a bestie and I were planning for our Halloween costumes a couple of months ago.  I tend to skew a little, shall we say, eclectic in the idea department.  No sexy nurses, kitty cats, or Playboy bunnies here.  No, I will suggest couple costumes such as clouds and sun, time and space, and night and day.  I cannot help myself.  For some reason, the more obscure and abstract the idea, the more I want to try to make it a semi-revealing costume.  Anyways, I was telling my sister about this while taking my billion-mile (accurate distance, ask Siri) commute to work, and she nonchalantly mentioned, "well, these still sound better than your zipper costume."  HOLD UP.  Zipper?  I was flabbergasted.  I demanded an explanation, as I had no recollection of this, and she was able to describe, down to the last silver pull tab detail, what my costume looked like. No matter how I tried, I could not recall this costume.  I didn't remember wearing it, seeing it, being it.  It wasn't that I didn't believe her, it was just something that didn't exist in my childhood memory bank.  

Well, my mother quickly confirmed this story, and she swore she had a picture of me dressed in all my clothes-fastening glory.  

Fast forward to today.  My mother gleefully alerted me to the existence of not one, but THREE pictures of me in the costume.  Let me break this down for y'all: I appear to be wearing white New Balances to match the white eyeliner I decided to wear as lipstick.  The zipper costume, hunter green with stegosaurus ridges on the shoulders, creates the illusion that I am a prehistoric Tim Tebow.  There is a full-on headpiece as well, that has some kind of silver, droopy Bassett Hound ears to match the silver pull tab that runs down the front of the costume.  It was atrocious.  It was beautiful.  It was a concept.

Even though I look like I may possibly murder someone with purely my eyes and my very rotund spectacles, I am so very glad past-me embraced the idea of a concept costume.  You don't have to pretend to be a princess or a Power Ranger when in reality, you are a zipper or "day."  Honestly, the only question you should ask when you are picking out your Halloween costume (or formal dress, or daily outfit, or pajamas) is, "does this make me happy?"  If so, let your freak flag fly, girl!   I know I did.