Before Therapy, There Was Donuts

Before I ever heard the phrase “inner child,” I was already comforting mine—with donuts.

Before therapy, there were donuts.

Not the trendy, over-the-top Instagram creations stacked with cereal or drizzled in matcha. I’m talking about the kind behind foggy glass at a gas station counter, or sitting in a cardboard box on the passenger seat next to you. A cream-filled, chocolate-iced long john. An apple fritter the size of your hand. The kind you grabbed on the way to school, before a shift at work, or after church when the world still felt blurry and too big.

Long before anyone asked how I was really doing, I had a ritual. I would sit in my car, sip strong coffee, and quietly enjoy a donut as the sun came up—countless times across the years. There was something sacred about it: the stillness, the sky slowly warming, the first bite of sugar and dough cutting through the noise of a long day ahead. I still do it sometimes, even now. Not out of habit, but reverence.

Some people heal on a couch. Some of us started healing at a counter.

And back then, counters mattered. Donut shops used to have real ones—long, low bars with round stools that swiveled. You’d sit down and have your donut served on a plate, your coffee poured into a ceramic mug. A waitress would come by to warm it up before it got cold. You weren’t in a rush. You were there. It wasn’t grab-and-go. It was sit-and-stay.

Donut shops made you pause. Just like the evening paper once did. Or a slow nightcap of cognac or brandy. Or a quiet pipe at the end of the day. All of it built to slow you down, to give you space to think, to be. Not scroll. Not hustle. Just breathe.

You don’t see shops like that much anymore. I haven’t in years. Most are big-box chains now. You walk in, grab your dozen, sip your coffee in a cardboard cup, and disappear into the traffic of life. But those old shops—the real ones—they were an experience. A point of connection. A ritual of relaxation, socializing, grounding.

This isn’t a love letter to sugar. It’s a nod to the little things that held us together before we even knew we were falling apart. Donuts were simple. Affordable. Kind. No questions asked. No forms to fill out. Just a little sweetness when the world was too much.

And honestly? Sometimes they still are.