As the leaves change color here in Manhattan and the winter coats emerge from storage, so do the ghostly costumes and memories from Hallows Eves past. Stashed away like contraband in the deep recesses of my storage boxes, the crinkled clumps of polyester and lace haunt me with past decisions to dress each October as sexualized versions of mice, ladybugs and various felines. Yet, as I regretfully admit to my annual patronage of sexy costume sites (try convincing your parents that the credit card statement of a $70 “smutty purchase” on 3wishes.com was for midterm study guides …), I find myself on the continuous mission to capitalize on the one holiday that allows a scantily clad self to prance the streets without judgment.

On days when the air is extra crisp, I think back to the innocence of Halloween nights when my brothers and I concocted candy attack strategies like vagabond pirates looking for unclaimed treasure. “KING SIZE, not bite size!” they would shout, waving their fists in the air. Then, gathering the hemline of my princess dress, I would pedal a little harder on my bike, in search of large chocolate bars that would last us well until spring. I never thought about what would happen to our diminishing candy stash as we grew older and stopped going door to door dressed as goblins and dead zombie brides. Who knew that my Halloween nights would evolve from candy trading and scary stories to nights of drinking and debauchery?

Perhaps it is the fact that Halloween warrants the status of a major religious holiday in New York City that I have chosen to go the “homemade” route this year. Scouring the Village for some serious leather, feathers and glitter has proved amusing in my quest to be a raven. In hopes of appearing seductively elegant (and not tarred and feathered) I choose my items with insight and caution, opting not to purchase the already made trendy feather jackets that make anyone under 5’ 7” look like Big Bird’s offspring. But my latest attempts to find flattering, body-conscious avian items have left me empty-handed and nostalgic for the time when I yearned to look like an untainted princess, and not a silly fantasy.

Coming from an all girls high school with powder blue skirt uniforms, Halloween was a chance to rebel; we paraded around school with blood oozing out of our ears, wings half torn to symbolize our fallen youth and excessive eye makeup that we borrowed from our mothers. Once I arrived at college, I realized Halloween did not concern expressing your inner woman warrior, but your inner whore.

I will always remember the day my friend had asked me “to be something with her” for Halloween (also known as, “if we band together in our appearance as sluts, a powerful magnetic force field will protect us from all judgment and assumptions that we are easy”). I naively arrived at her dormitory with many items in hand — patterned dresses, outrageous eye shadow and silly hats and scarves, only to learn that unless I was wearing just a scarf, I would not fit in. I repentantly agreed to be a Russian mail order bride that year — offending my soon-to-be best friend (who was indeed Russian) with my lack of Eurasian features and an even sadder tolerance for vodka. I vowed from that year on that ethnically obscure costumes should stay in the closet, and that store-bought cat ears or bunny tails were the safe way to go.

The following year, my roommate and I had the great idea of ordering an excess of costumes from obscure lingerie websites with the logic that Halloween was a holiday to be observed for more than three days. “What fun is it if you can only be a bunny?” she adamantly urged, and as I clicked through the options of cat woman, gothic maiden, lusty ladybug and bumble bimbo, I was seduced by images of pleather, fake suede and felt earpieces. Like children waiting for Christmas, we arrived home early each day to await our package.

Though we had never been adventurous in costume choices before, we made a decision to purchase a “Shoot Em Up Cowgirl” costume complete with a shot glass holster and a real fringe skirt (no joke), a Harry Potter schoolgirl uniform and a showgirl-esque devil dress, complete with pitchfork and horns. When the package finally did arrive, each costume fell short of their expectations: “Shoot Em Up Cowgirl” was really just a cheap plastic brown skirt and belt with plastic cough syrup cups, the Harry Potter dress didn’t even have an accurate Griffyndor symbol and the devil costume looked like an eight year-old’s tap dance uniform. The next day I called customer service. “So you expect to continually trick your customers with deceiving photographs?” I asked. The woman on the other end of the line sighed, and I was put on hold. As I listened to pre-recorded, breathy advertisements promising lust and fantasy delivered to your door, I realized why this holiday falls short of our hopes.

My initial instinct was to blame society for all of its marketed objectification of women, but that was not it exactly. With lady bug descriptions ranging from lusty to sweet and school girl costumes titled “Miss Behaving,” there is in the end, a comic relief in the fact that you can be anything you want for one day — and confidently wake up the next morning, normal.