When life gives you lemons...

Usually when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade. I'm generally an optimistic glass-half-full kind of woman.

This week I've had my share of lemons, but I didn't have the fortitude to make lemonade. Instead, I puckered at the sourness.

I'm glad today is over. I'm relieved that tomorrow is Friday. One more day of work--and the possibility of more lemons. 

Every morning for several weeks I've been waking up with a stiff, painful left wrist and hand. I've developed arthritis as a result of breaking my wrists in a four-wheeler accident last fall. Stiffness and pain are my new normal. Guess I'd better learn to deal with that recurring lemon.

After soothing my wrist with heat, I drove to work. As I was walking across the street to enter our building, a car barreled up the street, and instead of slowing down when she saw me, the driver just kept going and narrowly missed hitting me. Apparently, I'd irked her. She screeched to a halt, rolled down her window, shouted obscenities and shook her fist at me.

At work I received a voicemail from a confused woman who asked me about an unspecified story published on an uncertain date. When I returned her call, she went on and on about this story (which it turns out, I didn't write). I asked her when the story was published. She said, "I can't get to it right now. I'm on the toilet." Ew! Why did she answer her phone when she was on the toilet? I said I'd call back later and hung up.

Every afternoon at work lately, I've developed a serious headache. It's tough to write stories under deadline pressure when my head is throbbing and my eyeballs feel as if they'll pop out of the sockets. One night this week, I had to cover an evening event and had a short timeline to write a story for the next day's newspaper. My head throbbed so badly I thought I'd throw up. Somehow, I finished my story, moved it into edit, and went to lie down on the couch in the women's lounge while my editor read my story.

My headache has returned today. No painkiller seems to work. But I'm tucked into bed and am applying heat to my stiff wrist.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day. I'll try harder to make lemonade from the lemons. I'll write in my gratitude journal and look for the silver lining. 

But sometimes, when life is sour, you just have to pucker.