Occasionally,
I purchase a special sweet treat to help me withstand various life trials. Last
year, one mini-Milky Way sat on my desk in plain sight. Any tribulation that
entered my day had to reach a “Sponge Worthy” status before I’d eat this small indulgence.
I became Seinfeld’s Elaine, measuring
my distress just like she did to before using her favorite birth control. My
ultimate goal is to reshape the day’s strain into a manageable tidbit that saved
my candy for an even worst calamity.
My
mini-treat, left uneaten, morphed over time into my way of celebrating my
resilience. When our old hot water heater died an untimely death, I tacked onto
a credit card unexpected debt. Problem solved enough to save the candy for
another day. Massive layoffs at my husband’s company should’ve made me devour
the bar plus every sugar laden item in our house. Instead, I maintained that
the piece stay in place to celebrate not being unemployed. Illnesses and injuries
plagued family and friends, but nothing ever comparable to Mom’s Huntington’s
disease battle. The measure I used before consuming my Milky Way mini grew with
each day I walked away from wolfing it down.
At
year’s end, I indulged myself with the treat.
Starting
this year, I have Milk Duds sitting on my desk. The little yellow box calls
attention to itself in a way my demure Milky Way mini never did. Expecting a
more turbulent year, I snuck a LifeSavers hard candy storybook in the bin below
my desk and hid some Andes’ in the freezer. Yesterday’s news with withdrawing
from WHO, trying to destabilize the Fourteenth Amendment, and pardoning those
who brutally attacked police officers with the insurrection left me battered
enough to raid one roll of my Lifesavers.
My
personal goal to have the Milk Duds sit uneaten on my desk by year’s end may be
unreachable, but I’ll give it my best try.
Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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