Are we even allowed to talk about making lemonade out of lemons anymore? I mean, it was cliché before but Beyoncé has to have that trademarked. So as not to step on the Queen’s toes, I made lemon bars.
The last three months have been full of breathtakingly beautiful, and amazingly ordinary, and I’ve shared a lot of that. What I haven’t shared is the crap bag of difficult in between the beautiful and ordinary. The reasons for not sharing are many. 1) I’m not Anne LaMott and as much as I appreciate her writing, I am not the sole owner of this story. 2) I can’t do the words. Or at least I can’t make the words due justice to the experience. 3) I’m beginning to realize that sometimes it’s okay to say, “I’m going through a difficult time right now.” and not share the reason. And I know that there are people in the world who are going to judge that and roll their eyes and have something to say. So, if you’re one of those people, go find another blog. Because I need positive thoughts and prayers or whatever it is you put out into the universe for the people you care about and I don’t want to explain the details. (And it’s my little corner of the internet, so I get to do that here.) There isn’t a reason for anyone to worry – we are all healthy, we are all going to be okay. I have just hit one of those bumps that life can throw at you. It’s hard, it sucks, I’m not exactly certain things are going according to plan. I don’t even know how to plan which alone tends to be a bit of a struggle for me. (Give me a problem and I’ll organize that bad boy into submission. See here, here, here, and here.)
Which brings me to the half a case of lemons that’s been sitting on my counter since Sunday, the perfect metaphor. When I agreed to split the case with my friend, I had all these ideas in my head of what I would make. Then they arrived and I was feeling kind of punky. Then once I started feeling better, it was hot and I had too many other things to handle. Then I used one and realized that they were larger than I had planned. I hated the stupid lemons sitting in that box. Sour, bigger and juicer than expected, useless because I didn’t want to deal with them. I wanted to leave them there to rot.
Which on top of being wasteful, never works.
So I searched and searched and searched for my favorite lemon bar recipe and couldn’t find it. Finally I gave in and pulled up another recipe that someone had recommended to me awhile ago (it was okay). I’d like to find my other one. In my searching, I found a recipe for raspberry lemon muffins. And strawberry (or raspberry) lemon popsicles. And I juiced and juiced and juiced and poured that juice into ice cube trays so that I’ll have “fresh” lemon juice on hand.
I made a plan to get through that box. And I’m loving all the tart and juicy goodness.
I wish everything was that simple.