"...A Time In My Life..."

We blew into my parent's on Saturday, happy to be off the roads and out of the white-out conditions we adventured. We blew in at the same time as my sister and her family. Miles could not have been more excited to be at "Nanny and Bapa's." He really loves it there. He hardly talks to mommy and daddy if he's there with cousins, Zach and Max. He is way too busy for us! Those boys sure are busy.
This morning Miles found my mascara while we were preparing to leave Nanny and Bapa's. He had it out and had his work done by the time my mom caught him. He did a pretty good job, actually. He said "I look beautiful mommy." Well, yes, I suppose, but please don't do that anymore, you could hurt your eyes if you got it in them. "Why?" He really did get it right on his eyelashes (and all over his eyelids). It's funny how observant that kid is. I hardly ever put the stuff on, and yet he still knows what he's doing...
What did we do while at the folks? Well, not much. It is ridiculously cold, not suitable for much venturing out. But we did hit church and I did get to see Jenna for a couple of hours. Other than that, we watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" and other random television and ate a lot. My mom spoils us with tons of good food. Zach (9) is learning chess and trying to teach it to Nanny. That's quite a humorous thing to observe. I will not make fun of her though, I have NO clue when it comes to chess myself.
We also watched home videos. I can't say how I feel about that except that it totally freaks me out. Time marches on, I guess. Half the stuff I can't even remember and it wasn't that terribly long ago. Just like nine years or so. But I can't figure out how that's possible either because so much of it seems like five years ago...or less. Christmas videos freaked me out the most because the extended family is there and it's such a time marker to see cousins as little kids and know that now they're nearly done with high school. And there I am, looking generally the same as I do right now. How come I'm not nine in the video? It makes no sense! Once again, I was reminded I've actually been a "grown-up" for quite some time. In the video, I saw my cousins first and I was all "oh, look they're so little." And then it scans the room and hits me on the couch by my pregnant (with nine year old Zach) sister and an old boyfriend of mine. I said "what the heck is so and so doing there?" I couldn't piece together how this guy fit in this space in time with my family and I. I also couldn't figure out how it really was THAT long ago that I dated him. SO much has happened since then and yet if seemed like yesterday. Life is funny.
All I know is that I'm pretty glad there doesn't have to be any more different guys in the old videos, I counted way too many old boyfriends in the short amount of video we watched. Ryan came in the room when we were laughing about the boy on the couch with me and said "who's that?" My family made some of the usual cracks about how I've had a million boyfriends and then I just really wanted Ryan to sit by me. Right then. I said "come be my present and my future." I really am very glad that he is that for me. I did have too many boys come and go. I really did. That takes a toll on a girl. Just goes to show, all stages of life have their trials, mistakes and growing experiences. I'm in a totally different place now. Like Jenna said this weekend, "we've had nine lives." Sometimes it feels like that. All these little five year snippits of time, come and gone. Like in "The Pursuit of Happyness" when Will Smith narrates, "this is the time in my life I like to call Running." Or "this is the time in my life I call Stupid." It would be fun for me to name the stages and seasons too. I'll think on that....fun game:
Some ideas:
Bus 1 (elementary school; everything happened on that stinkin' bus -boys, friends, fights, music, daydreams, long talks, etc.)
Stealing Friends (junior high mean girl stage; enter more boys)
And later in life:
The Green House(the college/post-college six person neon green house on como ave. Oh, the drama and oh what fun.)
The Stupid Years(don't ask)
Anyway, from now on I'm going to come up with names for stages and then when referring back on things I'll be able to say, "that is the time in my life I like to call..."
Of course, these are just titles, I could go on forever with the memoirs held in each, but it probably isn't all that interesting, and it would be terribly time consuming. It's another way of looking back and realizing that all that has happened over all the years has made me who I am. If not for all of it, I wouldn't be this particular Heather. If I had different titles for these seasons, had I chosen different paths, I would most likely be very much who I am today, but different.

If you were to say "I like to call that part of my life _________," what would some of the titles be?