I’m kind of crazy about the holidays. I have multiple boxes full of costumes for all different holidays — other than just Halloween. I have light-up pins and springy headbands for the Fourth of July, sparkly shirts and reindeer ears for Christmas, clover-print shirts for St. Patrick’s Day, and egg earrings for Easter. Then, of course, are the Halloween costumes and trinkets.

On any given holiday, though, I’m nowhere near as dressed up as my house is. In fact, I blame my mother for my obsession with the holidays. You would not believe how much of my basement is consumed by decoration storage. Maybe you would, though, if you visited my house near a holiday. Rest assured that everywhere you looked would somehow have a holiday theme added to it, right down to the salt and pepper shakers.

All of this commotion has instilled a fervent love in me for the holidays. I’ve come to understand and appreciate the individual spirit of each one. They’re what I look forward to more than anything else on the calendar. Forget summer vacation; give me a holiday and I’ll be happy.

It’s never really been the holidays themselves that get me excited. Sure, I love dressing up and eating candy. But, more than that, it’s the escape holidays offer me from the real world. I look forward to a holiday with months of anticipation. They’re the light at the end of the tunnel. And I certainly partake in as many festivities as I can during each holiday season.

But this year Halloween has snuck up on me. I didn’t even realize it was this coming weekend until yesterday. This has never happened to me before. Usually I have put tons of thought into costumes and my plans for the night. I was alarmed to realize that I haven’t given Halloween any thought at all this year. None. That is just so unlike me.

So what’s different this year? Is it the plague that took over the school this past week? Maybe a little bit. But it’s not just this past week that had me forgetting this fast-approaching holiday. No, I think it has something more to do with the alternate world Uni has thrown me in this year.

It’s the world of a high school senior. My course load this year is arguably better than what I’ve had to handle previous years, so it’s not that the homework is completely suffocating. It’s not that I’m participating in more athletics and extracurriculars than ever before either. My tunnel vision is more related to my thoughts outside this year: college.

Campus visits, applications, teach recommendations, interviews, standardized tests, and essays. There is just so much to think about. And that thought is what has been blinding me. I’m not necessarily doing more work this year, even between both my coursework and the college admissions process. My haze has resulted mostly just from the pure division of my mind.

I’m no longer focused just on the present time, or what holiday is coming up. I’m thinking about next year, and years down the road. While completing calculus sets I’m also pondering which school would fit me best, and which supplements I have left to write.

I didn’t know how detached I had become from reality until I realized I had missed out on much of the Halloween pre-holiday buzz. This used to be what got me through the stress of school and life. This year, though, I’ve found hope in something else. This year I can look forward to an unwritten future that starts next year. And, remarkably, I find that more magical than a holiday.