30.

MY MEANINGLESS MIDLIFE SIX-MINUTE FLING

Why? I crinkle up the words, furious that I let myself be vulnerable again. Flatten them back out, search for what else they could possibly mean. How could I let myself get involved again? I’m too old for this. I crinkle the words back up. I can’t believe I committed so freely and completely before I knew the facts.

The Nutrition Facts.

I flatten the words back out. There they are, plain as day:

Calories: 250. Servings per container: 5.

I stare at the empty Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch bag in my hand. Anyone would assume this contained one small healthy snack, not five. I feel betrayed to my core. I’ve just accidentally said yes to almost as many calories as I should eat in a whole day. Betrayed and all alone.

It gets worse almost immediately.

I’m not alone. I feel the granola clusters start to expand inside me. Feel the dried cranberries and apricot pieces doubling and tripling in size in my stomach. The fiber-rich almonds are dividing and multiplying, dividing and multiplying. By tomorrow I’ll need to wear baggy smock tops and jeans with elasticized front panels.

I look down in dismay. My bump is already starting to show. One innocent six-minute fling and I’m pregnant with Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch. I try to steel myself for a great big stint of unplanned motherhood. Brace for the repercussions of this one irresponsible episode.

It gets worse almost immediately.

My eyes land on a display of garbanzo beans and I realize I’m still in the grocery store. I’m only in aisle two of a fifteen-aisle market, a fraction of the way through my grocery shopping. I’ve finished the relationship, am carrying an Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch love child, and haven’t even paid for the snack bag yet.

How appropriate, I think ruefully, that almonds were involved in what just happened to me. Now, when I feel so strong and unseducible. Almonds keep sneaking up from every direction. Was their impact not bad enough before? Almonds used to appear only in little gift bags at two of life’s most emotionally loaded events: bridal and baby showers. Pastel-colored, candy-coated Jordan almonds—symbols of another woman’s superior life choices. Party snacks that scream:

“She’s getting married and you aren’t!”

“She’s having a baby and you aren’t!”

How many beautiful showers did I leave and immediately eat my 1,500-calorie souvenir gift bag of Jordan almonds before I even got to the first stop sign on the way home? How many pounds of self-pity have almonds already added to my life? Perfect, I think, patting today’s Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch baby bump. Perfect, somehow, that almonds did this to me now, when I’m so solidly committed to making smart choices. As if there weren’t enough lessons in humility at this age.

At best, almonds are part of the required regimen of a new heart-healthy food plan . . . but I’ve proven way too many times what happens when I try to eat the “recommended” amount. At worst, almonds have slipped into the new heart-healthy naughtiness snack industry, in which so much bad-for-me weight is gained on good-for-me food. Pinto bean and flax chips. Goji berry brittle. Quinoa crackers. Spinach açai smoothies. Food I don’t even like but commit to in abundance because of the antioxidant-rich, nutrient-dense, immune-system-boosting ingredients.

I’ve worn the unfairness all over me. There are millions of options for the food that goes in the mouth. Still only one option for the type of weight produced once it’s swallowed. Shouldn’t baked organic beet chip fat look more attractive than Cheetos fat? Shouldn’t a box of gluten-free, fruit-juice-sweetened carob cookies produce healthier-looking pounds than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Shouldn’t too many sprouted ancient grain muffins look hotter in yoga pants than too many red velvet cupcakes? Shouldn’t Almond ’n’ Fruit Granola Crunch not count at all because it’s so healthy? Unanswerable questions in this unimaginable time when we can somehow be so bad while we’re being so good.

I must appear a little confused . . . or maybe I’ve just been standing in one spot too long, because a passing stock boy asks if I need help finding something.

“No, thank you,” I reply, holding my head high and my stomach in. I turn my cart toward the front of the store and gesture with the flattened bag in my hand. “Best that I just move to the checkout line and pay. I have a growing family and everyone will be getting hungry for supper soon.”