The letdown is unreal. The excitement has climbed, peaked and now is gone. Adrenaline soared and then bottomed out. After a year of planning, analysis and waiting, it’s all over in an eye-blink.

A hollow feeling settles into the bones. Depression creeps in like a spiritual hangover. All the fervor, energy and thrill is gone, like the brittle autumn leaves that bounce in death throes through the streets.

I might curl into a fetal ball and lie quietly under my bed. The world is no longer dazzling with joy and wild with expectation. The calendar, having turned to November, is a vicious document promising months of misery. It’s all over. It will be an entire year until it comes again.

I hate the day after Halloween.

Wait a minute. You thought I was talking about the World Series? The election, maybe? Ha! Those were fun times too, but I survive their passage without much moping. When Halloween ends, I am a sullen boy who mumbles and shuffles when he walks. I am a petulant child late in the day on Christmas when all that’s left to do is try on stupid clothes.

The hideous display of ghouls on my porch has been taken down. Hanging corpses were freed of their nooses and tucked into closets. Tombstones have been stacked neatly and stored for a year. The cardboard coffin has been folded and the vampire lady who inhabited it disassembled.

There is nothing sadder than menacing ghouls folded and stuffed into boxes. Once-wicked eyes stare up dully as they await their fate in storage. The reaper face sags and his black gown is in the laundry. The fog machine is out of juice and the strobe lights have been unplugged. The jack-o-lanterns are withered like mummies and soon they will rot.

I put 800 miles on the car during my Halloween excursions and enjoyed each one of those miles. Salem was bewitching. Boston was rich. Sleepy Hollow was a quaint and creepy place. I saw the famed horseman, you know. He was so close, I could have reached out and tapped him on the head, if he’d had one.

I put on my best vampire duds. I bought some designer fangs and used just the right amount of makeup for that cadaverous look. It was Oct. 31 and I was in my element. I was the undead, trying not to drool too much around the fangs.

I listened to horror-movie theme music in the car. I scanned the television stations for spooky flicks in hotel rooms. I roamed Halloween stores and picked up accessories for next year. I wandered the Halloween night with all the glee of a man enjoying his honeymoon, the Fourth of July and Super Bowl Sunday all in one day. Giddy, unrestrained glee.

And now it’s over. All the vampires, witches and ghosts mingled for an evening and then returned to their lives as accountants, plumbers and journalists. For a night, they regressed into childhood before being forced back into the world of bills, leaking roofs and screaming children.

While the less morbid of you prepare for the approach of perkier holidays, we darker types imagine ways to make Halloween last. Roast bat instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, maybe. A black Christmas tree with nooses instead of ornaments.

Ah, it’ll never work. The major holidays are ruled by tradition that can’t be shaken. Happy, wholesome holidays where you don’t get to dress up as a ghoul and put dead things on your porch. I’d trot out the vampire lady and dress her in a Santa suit, but the neighbors would nail me to the wall.

So, what do I do? I complain and mope. I write a column without a point just to unburden myself of the anguish. It’s like forcing my three or four readers to look at vacation photos they have no desire to see.

It happens to all of us though, doesn’t it? Grown men turn sullen the day after the Super Bowl. Barbecue gourmets suffer in silence for days after the Fourth of July. There may be people out there who need powerful anti-depressants after Groundhog Day. Who knows? We all have our specific joys and we mourn when they become inaccessible.

So maybe that’s my point. I miss Halloween like a teenager who misses his girlfriend when she goes away for the summer. It’s very bleak and melancholy. I’m sure you all can relate in one manner or another.

And hey! I really do have a ton of vacation photographs to show you. I’ll be over at about 8 tonight. Please have pumpkin pie.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.