It’s Not an Addiction to Lean on Another Person

Also: What would it be like to trick-or-treat your own house?

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Our Sunday posts are usually paywalled, but if you’re in the shit and need a lift, email me here and I’ll hook you up: ajd@thesmallbow.com

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Hi all — thanks again to The Small Bow for periodically featuring my version of A.J.’s Sunday check-in. My regular newsletter’s here. —Ben Gaffaney

Halloween is my son’s favorite holiday, more than Christmas, Thanksgiving or anything involving fireworks. J is only seven, but this is his third Halloween where he’s been counting the days, preparing to be Owlette from Paw Patrol, SpongeBob, or a Jurassic Park dinosaur. It’s one of those parent litmus holidays where you get big points for decorating or assembling a clever costume, and I’ve sat it out. I’ve given it up twice now because his mom and her partner are in a far more walkable neighborhood, and his classmates live nearby, so it’s a better age to go house to house with them. I’ve always thought this was a sign of selflessness on my part.

But maybe it’s coming from a place of fear. I could certainly take J through his neighborhood, meet up with one of the parents I’ve awkwardly shared numbers with at class birthday parties, but would we go up and down his street? What would it be like to trick-or-treat your own house? Is it too soon for him to start a memoir?

Instead, my last two contributions to the season were trips to “Pumpkin Nights,” a hike-and-display event that takes over a large park in Northeast Austin. There are plenty of smoke machines and kid activities, and in both cases, J had a blast, and someone went home crying.

Last year, J and his friend, a girl about a year younger, had a rough fall off a teeter-totter, one that bonked the girl’s head hard enough her mom didn’t talk to me for three months. She believed it could have been avoided, and we haven’t all gotten together since. J periodically asks about her, and I demur, because I don’t want him to know that one accident is all it takes for a relationship to end.