"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Whoever said that the first time was an idiot. Seriously, when life gives you lemons? What's wrong with lemons? I like lemons, I buy them on purpose. I squeeze them into water, use them when I cook. I know exactly what do with lemons, the possibilities are endless. Lemons are that perfectly acid citrus that adds life to everything it touches. Lemons are awesome. Life can give me as many lemons all it wants, I'll make shrimp scampi or lemon bars or lemon ricotta muffins.
I can handle tart, acidic surprises that can add flavor and brightness to my life. I'm OK with those kind of changes. Give me a rainstorm when it's supposed to be sunny, change up the plan and make life interesting. I can handle a temper tanrum in a grocery store. I can roll with a sudden change in direction. As long as it's minor, as long as it's a lemon.
What I've been dealing with lately are not lemons. They aren't bright and acidic, they are dark and pungent, like anchovies. Some people might be able to easily adjust and roll with this, but I can not. These new ingredients are a total mystery to me. What to I do with an anchovie? Throw it on a pizza, top a Greek salad? I don't want my pizza or my salad to be covered in anchovies. And yet I find myself holding these metaphorical cans of anchovies, completely at a loss as to how handle them, how to work them into my life.
So I've become obsessed with anchovies. My life has so many other things in it, I should set the anchovies on the counter and let them be, focus on the other things I've got going on. But I can't. It's all I think about, all I pray about, these cans of anchovies that I don't know what to do with. I don't know how to handle them.
It's a lonely road, there are only a few people I can talk to about my anchovies right now. Those few people haven't heard about anything but anchovies for a month at least. I know I should talk about the weather or the positive things or even the lemons, but I'm always preoccupies with the anchovies. I say the same things over and over again. I share the same fears, I tell the same stories, I can't be distracted from the things I can't figure out.
I'm still standing in the kitchen with my cans of anchovies, wishing I could chuck them out a window, but knowing that they are in my life now and I have to find a way to work with them. Give me lemons any day of the week.