by Cathy
"When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade."
This saying is the classic pick-me-up for anyone in a bad situation. It implies that we should take the manure that has landed into our laps (something bad) and turn it into fertilizer (something useful and purposeful).
For every inspiring story we hear, there are hundreds more disappointing ones. Thousands of jobs lost everyday. Thousands of homes lost everyday. Pay cuts. Stock market drops. Sinking real estate values. Essential freezes on bank loans. Bankruptcies. Foreclosures. Unemployment. Downsizing.
For the last several years, it seems that's all we Americans have been doing - making lemonade with all these lemons life has handed us. We've squeezed so many of them and downed so much of their tartness, we are thirsting for something else to drink. We want a glass of champagne, damn it, or a fine, aged wine. Hell, we'll even take a tall glass of cold water.
So this is for all those that have had it with lemonade and every spiked variety of it that they've concocted to carry them across life's bridges over the lowest of valleys.
This is for all of those that stretch a dime into a dollar, for those who "extract the fat from a fly," for those who wring water from rocks, sweat from the earth and tears from the sun. For those who begrudgingly wake up every morning trying to find that one speck of hope that will get them through the day since they've had that much-needed hope squashed into smithereens on a daily basis - yet still grip onto the tiny foothold of its possibility. This is for the insomniacs, the depressed-prone, the stressballs, the anxious, the panicked, the chronic worriers of gargantuan realities.
This is for the hope-forsaken, the frustrated, the wanna-quitters, the easier-to-give-uppers. For the ones that HAVE to keep going, even when there is a constant proverbial hand ready to push their faces back into the water the second they come up for air, seeking relief from the vice crushing their lungs.
You are not alone. We, this nation, under God, are currently weaved together by the threads of financial insecurity on every level. From the man on the street, to the unemployed and the underemployed, to the cushy job holders that are very well aware that they could easily become the could-lose-my-job-at-any-seconders.
Keep strong your faith, your aspirations and your willingness to live and get through it. Search for a Plan B. If you can't find it, create a Plan B. Take solace in the fact that generations before us have done more with much less. Let their determination guide your strength and your willingness. Don't let circumstances take the lead in your life, but you take lead in your circumstances.
So raise your glass, filled with your newfound libation of choice, and drink to your health and the health of those around you. And even if you can still only fill your glass with lemonade for now, know that one day, you won't have to down it any longer - because one can only take so much of the sour before they won't accept anything but the sweet.
We'll drink to that!
Cheers.
