Category Archives: aging

People say, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

That advice might work when you’re 5. Smashing, crushing, squeezing, stirring in tons of sugar. That’s all good.

But when you’re 39 still, you could spend a lot of energy making that tartly sweet concoction.

I heard Jeanne Matthews speak recently about myths and mythology in writing at a free Field’s End monthly writers roundtable presenation.

Although she uses myths in her series of mystery novels, she acknowledged that people in real life make up myths about their own lives, their own myths or “nonfiction stories,” if you will.

You probably have some yourself. Think of any story you have repeatedly told. Doesn’t it morph a bit? Don’t you emphasize certain points? Don’t you leave things out? As you repeatedly tell it, you are creating a myth.

I would guess that if you are a mother you have a myth about the birth of your child or children (Yes, dads probably have them too, but when’s the last time a group of dads got together and talked about the births of their kids?).

Really, moms, you probably do. The circumstances, the excitement, the surprises, the witnesses, the location, you pull it all together and voila! Myth is born!

But, Wendy, what does this have to do with lemons and lemonade? Glad you asked.

I have found myself lately surrounded by moms discussing their birth myths, and frankly, I hate mine.

It was the direct opposite of the Disney-like version discussed in our childbirth class. I was in the hospital for days, totally over-managed, triple-induced, then “failed to progress” and ended up (not surprisingly) getting a c-section.

I felt ripped off.

One big, fat lemon.

Even seven years after the fact, here come more mom gatherings (and another!) talking births, and there’s that freakin’ lemon sticking its tongue out at me!

And I can’t make lemonade out of it. It is a lemon. It can never be lemonade.

But I hope over time it will act like uneaten fruit on our counters–eventually shrinking, hardening, and rolling off in the day-to-day shuffle.

In life, we get lemons. We can’t change the lemons into, say, a mango. They are just lemons, and we’re better off acknowledging the lemon.

Acknowledge the lemon, Luke.

But we can notice them less, gently drop our frustration with them, bit by bit, and give ourselves a break that, yes, none of us likes the lemons in our lives. I think the less we fight against them, squeeze them, try to contort them into some sweet lemonade that they aren’t, the quicker they will shrink on their own.

At least, I hope so. *puckers lips*

Are you squeezing the lemons at your home?

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