I was looking through our photo albums and photo boxes, the other day, looking for a very specific picture of Real Man and I.
I didn’t find the picture I was looking for, but I had a great time looking through the photos.
Until I got to the photos of us in the late 90’s.
Apparently, from 1997-1999, (wedding photos excluded), I was going through a phase of smiling for pictures with my tongue just peeking out between my front teeth, like a small child with a serious lisp.
Maybe I thought it made me look cute or sweet or innocent?
I don’t remember doing it, but looking at the pictures now, it annoys me.
So, I started to think if there were other phases I had gone through that I could remember.
Clearly, there were phases…but could I remember them?
The first phase that I really remember is my “Harriet the Spy” phase.
I read the book, as a kid, and remember being absolutely enamored with the story.
And so, I got a little notebook and carried it with me. Everywhere.
However, there weren’t many conversations to listen to in my house.
The adults in the neighborhood all played bridge together once a month, so I already knew pretty much everything there was to know about them.
I couldn’t bring the notebook to school, or I’d get in trouble.
So, that phase was short-lived.
When I was a sophomore in college, I went through a vegetarian phase.
I had spent a week, the summer before, visiting the guy I was dating, who lived in Illinois.
They were big meat and potatoes people, and in that week, I ate more meat than I had ever eaten before.
I’m pretty sure that, at one meal, they served the big chop that flips the Flinstone’s car on it’s side in the opening montage of the cartoon.
After that week, I didn’t eat meat for the next year.
And then I wanted a cheeseburger.
When I was a senior in college, I decided I was going to be a coffee drinker.
Except I knew I hated coffee.
So, I bought myself a few boxes of those instant cappucino packets.
You know…like Cup-a-Soup, but with coffee.
Guess what?
I hated those, too.
But, it was senior year and it was spring and everyone around me was drinking coffee by the gallon in order to stay awake so they could get their Independent Studies done and I wanted, so badly, to share the experience.
But, I was pretty much done with my IS and was able to manage my time so I could do my work and still be ready for bed at a reasonable hour, so I had no reason for the coffee.
The worst part?
As a senior, I had my own room, and I only drank the coffee packets in my room, so no one even got to see me fitting in.
It was just me, my cup-o-java, and my Pump Up the Volume VHS tape, which I watched until the ribbon actually fell out of the cassette case.
I think I’m not so good at going through phases.
So, maybe you guys are better at phases than I am.
I’d love to hear what phases you’ve gone through, in your lives. How long did they last? Do you have photographic evidence? 🙂
Can’t wait to about them!
Why’d you have to go and bring up phases Amy. I went through a “karma-chameleon-like” search for my identity starting junior year in high school that stretched well into my Freshman year in college. I’ll offer three examples, but zero photographic proof: 1) I wore so many different matching Russel Athletics college sweatsuits to high school during my senior year that people thought I was sponsored by the Big Ten, the Big East, and the Biggest Loser; 2) At one point, I decided I could be Brandon Walsh (the kinder/gentler 90210 hearthrob)…so I essentially used rubber cement on my hair every morning and raided every local department store rack of their 28″ waist Z Cavaricci pants (even the mustard color pair that was on every clearance rack….the ones that made me look like I was shilling for Grey Poupon); 3) I can’t put my Winona and Johnny phase in writing. Ask Helena. 🙂
Comment by Shane — May 31, 2012 @ 7:14 am |
Ah…Brandon Walsh. Memories. No photographic proof, huh? I have a few yearbooks that might contradict that statement. 🙂 Oh, and I will DEFINITELY be asking Helena about the Winona and Johnny phase. 🙂
Comment by abozza — May 31, 2012 @ 7:45 am |
Oy. They were (and remain) painful at best. Except maybe #6. That one rocked. Lol.
1) the “I think I wanna be a boy” phase {ages 5-10}. My husband absolutely loves the pic of me at about age 5 in a pair of denim cut offs, NO shirt, bucket hat, barefoot and holdings Tupperware with a frog I’d caught in it. ;0) I just liked all that stuff that the guys got to do: little league, going shirtless, getting dirty, jumping bikes over big tree stumps in the sidewalks on Early street. It wasn’t until I started seeing kids “go out” in like 5th grade that it occurred to me that this wasn’t really gonna work out. Lol. Well that and a coupla really cute boys (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) flew into my girlie radar.
2) the purple phase {ages 10-12}. Everything from my bedroom carpet to my clothing. A tragic momentary lapse of all reason. I can hardly look at anything purple without cringing.
3) the “could I be ANYmore awkward” phase {ages 12-14}. I was 5’8 when I entered Frelinghuysen. I had a horrible haircut. I wore ugly 80’s wire framed glasses. I didn’t fit in ANY of the cute clothes all the girls were wearing (the little white moccasins with the beads, the parachute pants, anything from “The Limited” lol) and it was probably the most painful phase. I truly wanted to disappear. I wasn’t popular, played in band, stood on the wall at school dances, and hated just about every minute of jr high.
4) the “I’m sick of my entire life” and dont care who doesnt like me phase {ages 17-18}. I chopped off half my hair and spiked the top leaving the back long….in…a…mullet. Why? Because I could. I wanted out of high school and everything associated with it and figured this would weed out a lot of people from my life. It did. Lol. The real friends stayed or came back.
5) the “I must be tan 365 days a year” phase {ages 18-22}. I went to college in icy upstate NY and lets just say many of us were very familiar with the local tanning establishments. In hindsight I suppose I could justify some of it as treatments for Seasonal Affective Disorder which was almost impossible to escape in a town where it snowed from Oct to May.
6) the “I’m 30 and I don’t need to take any crap” stage. Something changed for me at age 30. Up until that point I mostly tried to fly below the radar, do my job n go home, and please people. And then I turned 30. It occurred to me that 30 was a really big deal and a crossroad between being an impetuous 20 something gen-xer and and adult. And the shift made me far less tolerant of bullshit. I started fighting back at work ( not a great idea) and in life (a great idea) against things I had grown to hate: arbitrary change, backstabbing for personal gain, social injustices and empty high paying careers. Hence my departure at age 30 from my career in daytime television.
Well, that’s about the worst/best of Em. And there are plenty of photos to document all of it. But they’d cost ya to see. Lol.
Xo h
Comment by Heather — May 31, 2012 @ 8:03 am |
I remember you in #4 and I remember thinking you completely rocked that do. Thought you were total badass. And, as for #2, show me a girl who hasn’t gone through a purple stage and I’ll show you…well, I don’t know, but I think we’ve all gone through the purples.
Comment by abozza — May 31, 2012 @ 10:42 am |
I had the same Harriet the Spy phase! I also had an only wearing gray phase (which I recently mentioned on my style blog), a phase of dying my hair a different color every other week, a phase where I decided to only be friends with boys, a really healthy phase during which I woke at 5 am to jog every morning (that’s a phase I’d like to bring back!), and a kind of emo phase in which I wanted to be Shirley Manson (lead singer of Garbage).
Comment by thismummaslife — June 1, 2012 @ 2:57 pm |
OOh, I had an up at 5 phase to exercise, as well! Agreed…wish I could get back into that one! 🙂
Comment by abozza — June 2, 2012 @ 7:36 am |
Lol. Thanks Amy. Glad to see at least one person wasn’t completely horrified by the spikes. ;0)
Comment by Heather — June 1, 2012 @ 7:55 pm |