When I was eight, I was convinced that I would never do several things that not only have I done, but some that I have done with what Eight Year Old Me would consider to be an alarming frequency.  The list includes smoking, drinking, doing drugs, kissing boys, having sex, and eating foods that were considered so totally gross, they were absolutely worth the hours-long standoff (or, more appropriately, sitoff) at the kitchen table until my parents gave up on trying to force asparagus in my mouth and told me to just go to bed, already.

Eight Year Old Me would be appalled at this bowl of ingredients that will bake at 350 for 70 minutes and emerge as Cranberry Pecan Pumpkin Bread.

Eight Year Old Me wants plain things.  White bread.  Smooth chocolate.  Cookies with a maximum of one embellishment, but two are allowed if one of those embellishments is a cheesecake center, but then again, Eight Year Old Me last existed in 1990 and no one was making cheesecake centers back then.  Eight Year Old Me is resentful of nuts, berries, granolas, and all this superfluous shit that people add to – and consequently use to ruin – baked goods.

But Eight Year Old Me doesn’t live here anymore.  Eight Year Old Me doesn’t have several cans of pumpkin at home, or dried cranberries in the pantry, and Eight Year Old Me didn’t see that chopped pecans were on sale for only $3.99 a bag (way cheap, nuts are expensive).*

Eight Year Old Me would not want to eat this Cranberry Pecan Pumpkin Bread.  Eight Year Old Me would seethe at her mother and ask why, for the hundredth goddamn time, why do you have to screw up every single recipe by adding all that stuff to it?  Why can’t you ever make anything normal?

Sorry, Eight Year Old Me.  I can’t explain why we changed.  It’s fall now.  It drizzles all day long.  It gets darker earlier.  My body wants what it wants.  Next time I’ll go back to the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  Eight Year Old Me and Twenty Seven Year Old Me can have a party over it.

* I just realized that I can’t picture the difference between a walnut and a pecan.  Not only am I boring and kind of dumb, but I am also completely sober and should not be spending several minutes thinking about stuff like this.