When life gives you lemons…

It’s a well-known saying; when life gives you lemons… make lemonade. 

I guess the point of this is that you should make the best out of what you have. But what if you don’t want to make lemonade…? What if, instead, all you want to do is kick those lemons as hard as you can, to smash them to pieces and stamp them into a pile of mush..?

Well that pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling for a little while now, and all for no reason whatsoever. I have nothing bad happening in my life, I have more than enough to live for and life is good, amazing in fact, and yet I still feel low… still feel sad and as though I’m just not good enough. My days are exhausting and I’m not even doing anything difficult, I mostly look forward to the evening as all I want to do is to go to sleep.

I have these dips sometimes, where all I want to do is fall down a deep dark hole and hide away, to cry and feel sorry for myself and hope that the sadness I have for no reason will disappear soon. And then equally I will all of a sudden climb out of that hole and be the happiest person on the planet, and it’s this climb that I’m hoping will come soon.

No amount of positive attitude, happy thoughts, snapping out of it or otherwise makes a difference. As with anything for me, it happens when it happens… when my brain allows it I guess.

I can’t pin point the exact moment that this current low hit me, but I have a feeling it could be when I hurt my hips again.

I had been so eager and excited to compete at my very first powerlifting meet in June in a few weeks time, and then managed to injure myself again, other than rest there isn’t a huge amount that has been helping to ease the pain. That’s when I had to face reality and decide that June wouldn’t be my first meet after all.

Injuries are hard for me to come to terms with,  I haven’t really had them before now – sure, I’ve had my brain surgery but that was more of an obstacle to overcome and show the world I could make it though, beat the odds, and I believe I have. So having to slow down because of something as stupid as pain in my hips just seems a little pathetic to me.

I was planning to take a few weeks off everything in a couple of months time for various reasons anyway, so have decided to bring this time off a little sooner than planned.

I feel like I need to really take the time to appreciate what I have, to be proud of the things that I have accomplished and to try and not look at the things that I haven’t yet done, the things that seem further and further away the more I think about them.

I am constantly feeling like I am failing my family, as if I am trying too hard to provide for the future dreams that I am missing out on the here and the now.

Missing out on my incredible kids, I’m scared that I’ll blink and they’ll be too old for kisses and Sunday snuggles, I’ll blink again and they’ll not want to be with me at all and that scares me.

I found this quote that a friend shared recently;

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

 –  Alfred D. Souza

And then it truly hit home, the life I am trying to provide is already happening, right before my eyes and up until now I’ve been missing it.

So until my up side throws down that rope to pull me back up to my high and happy place again, I’ll be waiting, keeping this quote fixed in the forefront of my mind and will do my very best to ignite that flame of happiness, not just for me but for the ones around me.

Please understand, I don’t write for sympathy, or for people to be concerned about me. I write because it helps me to clear away my demons from time to time, and I share my thoughts because I hope it helps others who might be feeling the same way.