When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
We’ve all heard the adage, and some of us have tried (with varying levels of success) to apply it. The way things have been going in my life these days, I am starting to think that God must really love lemonade.
I’m not one to complain. For the most part, the various batches of lemonade that I’ve made over the years have been sweeter than sour.
I mean really, who could come up with a life like mine? It wouldn’t work as a story plot, because there are so many unrealistic twists and unbelievable coincidences that nobody would read it.
I tried to write a synopsis of my life but it all came out so bizarrely convoluted that I had to give up.
Let’s try just the last 5 years…
Leaving a 16-year marriage, I moved back to my parents’ home (from the opposite side of the globe) at the age of 42 with a teenage son, a tweenage son, and an infant daughter. We then moved 400 miles to another country to join with a woman, who I met online through a strategic war-game, and her teenage daughter. Two months after we become a family of 6, we took in 2 young lemons boys in need of a home. Not long after that, the tween son decided to move overseas to live with his dad, and teenage son and daughter announced that they are a couple.
Hun, we may need more sugar!
So, 2 women raising a teenage couple, two 5-year-old nearly-twins, and a tyrannical soon-to-be 3-year-old… Enter grown-and-flown son from partner’s previous relationship, about to be married and father to 7-year-old son and newborn baby boy. That makes 1st grandson 2 years older than two of his uncles and one of his aunts, with grandson 2 not too far behind them.
This lemonade just keeps getting better.
The college that I commute 80 miles each way to work at comes on hard times, and I lose my classes for what we hope is a temporary sour spot. We find the sugar in the form of more lemons, as we find out that my 82-year-old father has progressing dementia which may be Alzheimer’s disease. Time off work leads to extended visits to monitor and care for my parents.
Spring leads to summer. The college decides to award the summer session classes to the new guy on the team, and we face another 3 months of struggling to raise 5 kids on one small salary. The kids are starting to turn yellow with all the lemonade we’ve been feeding them. It’s a wonder they still admit to being thirsty (especially since I stubbornly insist on making theirs with half the sugar to keep it healthy).
We are reminded to appreciate the lemonade as my mother benefits greatly from my freedom to be her chauffeur and caretaker through two cataract surgeries. One went smoothly, and the second did not. We are still dealing with the recovery from the complications. Is there medicinal value in lemons?
Lemon trees are apparently very sturdy and prolific.
A decision has to be made. Both sides of the coin are bittersweet.
It is increasingly obvious that my parents would be best off if I were to stay with them full-time. At the same time, the adoption process for the boys is moving forward, and it is clear that Dar is struggling with the job of caring for 2 mini-monsters and the teenage sibling-couple by herself. It is also obvious that one income cannot support our blended/split family.
Fall classes at the college would give us the income boost we need but would make it difficult to spend more than a weekend or two a month with my parents. Staying with my parents full-time would give them a well-deserved life with their granddaughter and increase their quality of life enormously, but would break us financially.
Ok, God, I’m drowning in lemonade now, and I’ve just about run out of sugar… Perhaps you could choose a new flavour of choice? Watermelon is quite refreshing!