Life Changer

I love drinking boba. Blueberry milk tea is probably my all-time favorite flavor. I’m no boba expert, but I can tell you if the pearls are overcooked or if they put too much ice in my drink. I'm just a fan who uses boba as a way to relax. In that regard, boba is not just a drink to me, but a part of my lifestyle.

Earlier this week, after having finished drink a large Mango milk tea, I wanted to kill some time. So, using my phone and curiosity, I pulled up the nutritional values for a boba. Depending on the drink and the size, boba drinks can be up to 1000 calories. I was shocked. I'm still shocked. That’s more calories than I sometimes get in a whole day.

One of my favorite pastimes is now gone. I can’t drink the drink knowing that it is blatantly adding to my weight problem. If I eat a pizza or drink a Jamba I at least feel full. Boba is so light though. It's treat, not a meal.

I can still technically drink boba, but I’ll never look at it the same way. Drinking one now would be like drinking a sin--so good, and so bad. Discovering the caloric content of my lovely boba drinks is, what I call, a life changer: a moment that changes the way you look at the world.

She didn’t say who she was dating. An acquaintance, who was insensitive enough to tell the truth, revealed she was now dating one of a best friend from high school.

Grabbing his car keys off his nightstand, a half-open drawer revealed a half-used box of condoms.

His skin felt waxy and dull compared to the shiny mahogany surrounding him. The skin on his face, stretched out and solidified by chemicals, was my last physical image of him.

I know boba seems simple, and I know it sounds like I’m being over dramatic, but this is one of those moments that will change the way I live my life. I don’t think I will casually suggest a boba to a girl I meet in class. I don’t think I will spontaneously choose to drink a boba on the train ride home. After a stressful day, a boba will only add to my fears that I live my life in excess and gluttony.

Even a small life changer, even an inconsequential drink, has altered the pulse of my routine.

Life changers, big or small, are our personal perceptions of the world yielding to reality. It is safe to live in world where our ex-girlfriends fade away, our fathers don’t have sex, and our loved ones live forever, but reality fragments our comfortable imagination into pragmatic events.

I won’t drink boba the same way, but this really is not about the boba. It’s about losing another piece of my inner paradise to the outside world of 1000-calorie disappointment.