When life gave you lemons, how did you make lemonade?

Easy, as long as I can afford to buy the sugar to sweeten the lemonade. lol
I rallied after a long term divorce 10.5 years ago. I maintained a wonderful life for myself all these years, grew tremendously, was absolutely joyous, for years and years, but now, this economy has wiped me out and I am buried under a ton of lemons in the moment.
I don’t know how I am going to make a new batch of life lemonade at this time.

Being financially stricken is a gazillion times worse, for me, than ending a dysfunctional marriage.
All I want is peace and serenity and to not have to work so hard anymore at almost 54.
This newest batch of lemons may remain very sour forever at this point in my journey to sweetness. I may just squeeze some of these lemons into a nice, steaming pot of Oleander tea at some point.

I don’t do poverty well at all.

Any way you can. Life is a rhythmic experience. It is normal to have good times and bad times. However, I have noticed that bad times can come by accident, or by your own screw up.
Good times rarely occur by accident. They usually require effort.

Survivors can help others through hardships, victims can’t.

More importantly, how do you turn your AIDS into lemonaids?

Three years ago, I left a tumultuous relationship with a friend who was suffering from depression and kept putting me through emotional hell worrying myself sick over them. I realized that it was just not healthy for me to sacrifice myself to try and fix things. In the midst of this transition, I met my SO and we started taking the bus together and exchanging messages and stories. We started dating a few months later.

One year ago, I was thrown out of my SO’s house by their parents. I decided not to spend time trying to fix my relationship with them and instead focused on academics, my career, and relationship with my SO. Now I have graduated, have a job lined up, and am bracing myself to move out of this crummy old town to start a new life with my love by the end of next year. We might just elope. Shh, don’t tell our families.

It baffles me how I am in such a difference place than I was when I first joined Fluther. I was at one of the lows in my life and I am so much happier now than I was then. I feel stronger, more mature, happier, wiser. Sure, I went through a ton of crappy situations in between there and now, but I am so glad I did.

I have found much of the same experience…..I was married for 20 years….divorced, bought my own home…built up my own savings, credit, individuality, etc…to marry again…well he wiped me out financially….the divorce was 10 times easier then starting from scratch. I had the big, beautiful homes, the toys, new cars, pools, etc….then into a rental house in the city shopping for a toaster and a shower curtain at the dollar store. No lemonade for me, more like humble pie. It has been almost four years and slowly I am climbing my way back up, but I have not been financially happy since. I have worked two jobs and taken only one vacation. I realized I will never be rich, probably not “comfortable”. So….I try to be happy with what I have and thankful I am healthy and have a good job, many do not. I remind myself constantly….I would rather be poor and live with what I have, then live with those that did not treat me right. I have found someone that treats me like gold and that is far better than a big empty house. (Besides that…my odds of hitting the power ball are pretty slim, so I have to keep looking for the positive!)

I put lot’sa vodka in my lemonade. Per Dr. Smirnof’s orders.

This question just got my head spinning. Maybe my problem is that I don’t like lemonade. Or it could be that most of the lemonade I have had was not made from lemons. And what’s with that pink lemonade? Do I prefer lemons? I’ll have to think about this more…

@tom_g So when life gave you lemons, how did you make boeuf bourginion?

I always say “When life gives you Salmon, make Salmonade”. I also tend to be drinking when I say that.

@janbb You don’t. You find a way to market the lemons as some exotic strain of magic lemon and then you sell them for $50 a lb. to pumpkin heads. lol

I was lucky enough to have family around to take over most of the simple daily tasks of living. After awhile, I found my self getting more involved, and eventually began a new life. It took about a year each time.

I make it with a lot of whining, kicking, screaming, and crying.

i still make it though . . .

Personal growth, I hope? Like maybe I learned life lessons that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

A lot of the course of my life up to this point has been determined by coincidence or things out of my control. Like, if my mother hadn’t died when I was in high school, I wouldn’t have moved in with other family in another state. Then I wouldn’t have met certain people at certain times who drastically chanced the course of things. One of these was someone I met on a train late at night. I wouldn’t have been on that train at that time if it weren’t for a random chain of events, leading back to her death.

There have been times in the past when I’ve been very, very poor, and pretty lonely and unhappy. The upshot is that now, I understand and appreciate everything I have, whether it’s a positive friendship, a fun afternoon in a new place, or just a nice meal. After hard times, you notice everything, and the tiniest little things make you happy. The other night I was driving along the river, and just the feeling of driving, the night wind, and being the captain of my own ship, made me so happy.

After a certain point, your own decisions have more bearing on your life than the decisions of other people, and you sink or swim on your own merits. That is the best, most freeing feeling. Maybe if my teens and young adulthood hadn’t been so full of crazy ups and downs, I wouldn’t even know what to call that. So I think, in the end, “lemons” give you a set of new eyes; you see the world in a new light.

I became a type 1 diabetic more than 25 years ago. For many months I only saw lemons and they tasted very bitter, even disgusting. It took me years to overcome the nightmare and learn how to make lemonade by coming to the following conclusions:

1) In a way, type 1 is much better than type 2, because it gets detected early on without damaging the body over a long period of time
2) You are forced to handle insulin, which greatly improves the quality of life (you can even eat sweet stuff) compared to the restrictions for type 2 patients not getting or sadly not wanting to take insulin
3) You are forced to do frequent regular medical checkups (complete bloodcount, ultrasound etc.) which, as a side effect, means detection of other problems early on
4) You learn so much about food, which helps keep your weight and live a healthy balanced life
5) Being forced to handle a major personal crisis made me stronger later in life and helped me be successful in my professional life
6) It also helped me adopt an attitude of gratitude and not take everything for granted (I live in a rich country with excellent doctors and I got health insurance like my fellow citizens and we don’t have a dangerous Tea Party in our country opposing this great achievement)