According to science - read: my high school biology teacher - the human body changes significantly every seven years. We tend to think in terms of these overarching stages of maturity: infancy, childhood, puberty, adult life, graying and trading in the Porsche for a minivan, Viagra and finally death. This seven-year categorization explains a lot, such as why older women - and only older women - prefer the smell of ridiculously pungent perfume to anything remotely pleasant. But this method skips over the best way to reflect on life - phases.
In sixth grade, for instance, I thought for a solid five months that skater T-shirts were the only things to flatter my blossoming 11-year-old figure, or lack thereof. My mom might have cried when I decided to wear a black Spit Fire T-shirt almost daily even though it was vaguely demonic and only appreciated by my male classmates. I got over that phase when Good Charlotte started to suck, or, at least, when I realized that they had sucked all along.
That was nothing compared to the "Dude" phase. I was not cool enough to have been referencing "The Big Lebowski." "Dude, Where's My Car?" hadn't been released yet. Maybe "Rocket Power" was my influence, but either way, I never should have thought it was acceptable to consider "dude" a noun, adjective, conjunction and preposition. Dude, it was the dudiest phase of my dude life, dude.
Other memorable phases have included checking under my bed every night for ghosts after watching "The Sixth Sense"; sweat pants as pants; country music; and attempting to be the world's most unassuming rap battle champion. That phase may or may not be ongoing...
Most recently, I have entered a phase which might be the worst one yet. No, I am not "turning" conservative or considering a perm, but my reputation is still at risk. I wink.
Winking is single-handedly - or single-eyedly - the creepiest gesture our facial muscles can possibly facilitate. Often, actually, our facial muscles don't allow it. The ratio of people who can pull off a wink to those who look like they swallowed a batch of Polyjuice Potion is precisely one-to-infinity. You either end up looking creepy, like you could be in an ad for Pepto Bismol, or like you really need to invest in a new pair of contacts. I will go ahead and make a bold statement: The Old Spice Man, The Dos Equis Man and Oprah - because let's face it, she can do anything - are the only people who can pull off the wink.
So why am I winking on-the-regular? I think it started during rush when I was in a large room with too many girls, so I needed to communicate subtly instead of yelling my sarcastic commentary for everyone to hear. Perhaps I should seek medical attention.
Either way, it is more entertaining, if not more humiliating, to look back on life in terms of these seemingly trivial pursuits instead of banal scientific stages of maturity. If nothing else, at least it gives you an excuse to listen to "The Anthem" and be emo again - if only for three minutes. College naturally segments into years, but try thinking in terms of phases. The time when you would walk down Rugby Road at 9:30 p.m. looking for a party; when you made it a point to never skip class; the month when you really wanted to get more involved and tryout for lesser-known organizations. Oh wait, that really is just first year...
Phases come and go more often than life stages, so they represent a way to evolve
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