LEMONS TO LEMONADE TO A PUDDLE ON THE GROUND

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS...

What do you do with them?

For me... I want to say "NO, life! I don't want your stupid lemons and I don't want to make any stupid lemonade either!" You know what I get when I try to make lemonade, I get squirt in the eye and the "lemonade" tastes like sour water... 

I have come to the conclusion, however, that perhaps the reason my "lemonade" doesn't turn out properly is because I start out with a defeatist attitude. I don't believe, from the very beginning, that I will be able to make good "lemonade". Thus, it ends up being sour water and burning eyes.

So what happens if I begin believing in my ability to make "lemonade"? The ever dominant cynic in me wants to say that nothing will change. I still will not be able to do it and I likely will fail even worse this time around. But somewhere, deep in side of me; extremely deep... there is an optimist. That part of me is buried so deep it often loses out to the voice of the cynic, but it is there... ever present and fighting it's way through the deepest, darkest parts of me, trying to win out.

This is the optimist... 

"I can do it. I am going to be okay. Just keep breathing. Thing's will start to get better". 

The optimist speaks in tiny sentence fragments. None the less, they are valid fragments and they sometimes find their way to the surface and help to keep me going.

So, right now, even though I want to say, no more "lemonade", I will instead say, bring on the lemons, cause I can do this!

I can do this!

I can do this!

I can do this!

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE, SHAKE IT OUT

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa
And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

I CAN...