Saturday, September 26, 2009

Day 118: Donuts Should Not be Agents of Misery

The Donut of Misery. The “donut” as it’s called is a countdown of sorts created by a soldier or marine in 2003 or so the story goes. You input the date of the event you are counting down to and it keeps a constant count right down to the second until that time comes to pass. It is aptly named because the time during deployment is miserable for all involved. Whenever the husband deploys we use the donut of misery to mark time and give us a way to look forward to his return.

The name refers to its shape, which is donut like in that is circular. Ironic to use it for a negative purpose since for me, donuts equal all things good in the world. I feel like no matter how bad something is, if you have a donut it makes it at least a little bit better. They are the ultimate in comfort foods, sweet, satisfying and decadent. So why name something representative of misery with a title of something so wonderful?

Maybe that’s the point. You take the absolute worst time of your life and put a positive spin on it and just count the minutes until the good emerges. So much of life is like that. We get through it by looking forward to the good times in life. Everyone knows there will be bad times, but we try not to focus on those, instead, we set our sights on what we see in the horizon. The next promotion, vacation, weekend together, whatever is good in your life becomes an anchor of sort. So I guess in a way, no matter how bad things get, we all have a donut. That life saver thrown to a drowning man, the circular band of a wedding ring, the time chart counting down to a moment of reunion, and the donut itself. Round, sweet, satisfying and a life saver in so many ways.

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