When life gives you lemons
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
That's the saying, right? Turn your losses into wins, use your bad experiences for something good, there's potential in everything and so on so forth. Smack some sugar in and the bitterness turns into something palatable. But sometimes we experience things with no lemonade potential. Things in life that just kind of happen and we're left to react to them, be it good or bad. A lemon is fired out of a t-shirt cannon with no preamble and all the stores are closed and the sugar crops have dried up. It would be fun if we could press pause and sit down to process things properly, but few are afforded that luxury. When life gives you lemons, sometimes you just gotta pick 'em up and keep walking.
Case in point: in 2021 I woke up, checked my phone and found out my grandfather had passed away. It wasn't a surprise; he was old, sick, and had been in and out of the hospital for years. Nevertheless, this was it. He was gone. And I did what anyone would do: I told my sister what had happened, messaged my mom, got dressed, and then- well, then I had to go out and pick up a package I had ordered. Because, as I think we've all learned during our lives, time doesn't freeze when you do. An unimaginable tragedy may befall you, or perhaps a joyous stroke of fortune does, but it doesn't change the fact that there's packages to pick up, groceries to buy, lectures to attend and shifts to cover. The world keeps going and you're expected to go with it or be swept under the current.
Later the same week, hundreds of kilometres away in the family house, my uncle said the exact same thing to me: how strange it was that even though his father had just died, he still needed to go to the store, cook dinner, take his kids to their hobbies, just keep living his normal life in spite of everything. Feels kind of unfair, doesn’t it? You’d think the universe would be kind enough to provide you with a breather, but the world doesn’t stop and keeps pushing you forward.
In a strange sense, this indifference to our individual problems is comforting. No one at the store will give you a pitying glance, a handshake or (god forbid) a hug. The post office lines won't go any faster. There’s no special treatment and no kid gloves. No one knows what’s up. You can lull yourself into a sense of security because the world hasn't changed. You might have, but the world at large has not. The world just keeps turning and you'll keep turning with it, even if you don't want to, you're practically forced to. The same things are still out there today as yesterday, they never went anywhere. One bad thing doesn’t kill the rest of the world that’s still out there for you. The lemons don’t taint the rest of your life or turn it bitter. Now you just have some lemons to hold besides everything else. Are these lemons a good thing? No. Are they still there? Yes. And fortunately you’re still here to deal with them.
You remember being a kid and getting special treatment on your special days? How the world seemed more in tune with your feelings. Your exceptional circumstances prompted exceptional treatment. I’m not saying that doesn’t apply as an adult- people will still be flexible and kind if you run into some sour business, but you’re no longer exempt from the rest of the world the way you used to be. You have to bake your own birthday cakes, cook Christmas dinner, pay rent and tidy up the house. And these are the easy things. It’s just a shame that life isn’t easy and sweet all of the time- most of the time, really. More often than not the reason you could use a small pause from the world is more sour and lemon-related. But you still have to walk down the street and suppress a grimace when some people suppress smiles because you might have gotten lemons and they got strawberries, but you’re still walking down the same street. Misfortunes and windfalls receive equal treatment in the larger scale of things. We all still wind up in the same line at the grocery store and take the same bus. And the world keeps spinning because that’s what it does, and you keep moving and living past this because that’s what you do.
I don’t think there’s a right way to act when life gives you lemons. You might not have asked for them or anticipated them, but they’re your lemons, now. You’re allowed to be angry about them, bitter about them, want to give them back, but you can’t. You’re stuck and making lemonade might not be an option, and as unfair as it might feel, perhaps there’s a certain sort of comfort in a world that treats you just the same the next day no matter what fruit you got smacked in the face with. Having to pick up a package after a death in the family might feel jarring, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t the package you’ve been expecting. You still have the same store to go into, the same clothes to wash, dinner to make and buses to catch because even if you may feel like you’re tearing at the seams, the rest of the universe is still out there. It’s not waiting around for you and one day you will face it again, lemons in hand because just like the world out there, you didn’t cease to exist, either.
