When you can't have Mom, eat a Symphony bar

Last night will not go down in history as one of my favorite nights. In fact, if I had the ability to remember what happened every day of my life, and further had the ability to rank those days in order from worst to best, I think yesterday might make the bottom quartile.

I haven’t been at the height of my game lately, which is making my ability to cope with life’s doldrums more challenging.

And that’s where the Symphony bar came into play.

You ever had one of these?

If not, seriously guys, you’re missing out.  Go get yourself one. Now.

Let me tell you the story of how I came to be a card-carrying Symphony bar lover: 

When I was young, my mom used to take these grocery shopping trips to York about once a month. Here’s something you need to know about growing up rural: when you go to the nearest “city” (York had a population of around 7,000—practically a metropolis compared to Exeter, my hometown, population ~700), a place that has an actual Bag N Save, you don’t get just a few things. It’s not a “let’s just get some bread and milk” kind of trip. These trips were a “fold down the backseat of the minivan, get the cooler iced up and ready for frozen goods, clear the whole day for this” kind of endeavor. A $250 endeavor, in the mid-90s—that’s a lot of groceries, folks.

These trips, in the early years, would culminate in much begging for McDonald’s perpetrated by me and my brother. Because York had a McDonald’s, yo. All we had in Exeter was two bars and, starting when I was about 12, a Casey’s General Store. By default McDonald’s was the Mecca of food-loving, obese children from Exeter, of which I was one.

In later years, the “cool” factor set in and my brother and I stopped begging for McDonald’s. Mom would let us get ice cream in the food court area of Bag N Save, and we would sit back there in a booth with our food and read magazines while mom shopped.

And in later later years, Nate stopped going on the shopping trips but I thought I should keep going with Mom to help her bag groceries. (I might have also chosen to go because I needed some hair gel or butterfly clips or a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie or some other gratuitous 90s-Teen-Girl product at the York Wal-Mart, but whatever, let’s stick to the “trying to be a helpful kid” narrative). It was in these teen years, the just-me-and-mom-shopping years, when the Symphony Bar thing got started.

You see, they sold these HUGE Symphony Bars at Bag N Save. I bet they weighed a pound. A pound of the most delectable, delicate milk chocolate with perfect, crunchy little toffee bits and almond pieces. Heaven, I tell you. Mom and I were in tacit agreement that there was no ice cream on earth that could possibly taste as good as Symphony after a hard day of shopping. And so, we’d always get one, and eat part of it on the way home. The remainder of it, Mom would squirrel away somewhere in our house, never again to be seen by me— until the next trip to Bag N Save, when we’d start the cycle over.

For me, Symphony bars are synonymous with comfort. Yes, yes—I’ve done a lot of work over the years to move away from using eating as a coping mechanism, so these days it’s usually not my go-to. I’ve really done a fine job of transitioning my stress-coping into activities like crying, venting, and drinking. Oh, and shopping.

I kid. Mostly.

Last night my defenses were weak, and I felt sad, and what I wanted at that moment was my Mom. I wanted her to be right there so I could lay my head on her shoulder and let her wrap her arms around me. I wanted to smell her. I may have wanted to be fourteen, but I’d take any of these things even at thirty-three. I wanted comfort.

And I happened to be in Wal-Mart. And I happened to be buying Dark Chocolate Kisses in for my office (I have a psychological theory about chocolate and keep some around for my clients. Just call me Remus Lupin, y’all). And I happened to walk by the Symphony bars. And because my mom wasn’t right there to tell me that things are going to be okay, and because it was 11:20 at night and I didn’t want to call and wake her up, I happened to purchase the Symphony bar and eat a good long row of it on my drive home from the store.

Not as good as Mom by a longshot, but the taste and the smell of chocolate and toffee reminded me of home and of easier days. It gave me just enough hope to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Thank goodness I’m going home to my parents' house this weekend. I’ll get the real deal, not the proxy.

Maybe I’ll bring Mom what’s left of my Symphony bar. 

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Tell me, friends: What things do you long for when you're in need of comfort? Leave a comment below; I'd love to hear your stories.