When life gives you lemons...

When life gives you lemons ... wallow in self pity and become sour. (I might not be
remembering that proverb quite right.)

In a whirlwind of emotion today I have been accepted and enrolled into an access to higher
education course at college, felt completely overwhelmed and realised I couldn't realistically
do it, had a minor break down over how many freaking lemons I possess and decided on the
part time version of the course instead. (Then drank lots of tea.) It's been a long day.

On the one hand I'm very excited to start a course in September, I'll have a vague direction to
head in, I'll meet new people and I'll have something to do in between doctors appointments.
On the other hand I have to commit to being somewhere on time, use my brain for actual
school work and find the energy to get to college. Three things I'm not the best at right now.

My minor break down earlier was in part due to the fact that in spite of all my hard work and
stress during school I still can't keep pace with my peers. I realise that my peers are all now at
wildly different stages of life, but my subconscious believes that all 20 year olds are feeling
fulfilled in university or work and frankly, who am I to tell it any different. I know logically that
whether I take one or two years to complete this course will have little bearing on my future,
but right now accepting that I can't take on a full time course is hard. It's scary to admit to
yourself that you honestly don't know if you'll ever be able to work or study full time. No one
can give me a timeline for recovery or even tell me that it will definitely happen. By doing the
course part time I'm giving myself a better chance of recovery, more time to chase potential
health treatments and more energy to enjoy time with friends. I don't think I ever really had the
choice to do it full time, it's just not an option with my health how it is.

It's hard when life doesn’t stick to the script you’d given it. (I'm looking at you lemons.) It can
be maddening and frustrating, it can make things feel hopeless or make you feel like it’s not
worth working for what you want as it never seems to come through anyway. I often find that I
need to be reminded of a couple of things. Firstly, I have to remember that my circumstances
are what they are, everyone has limits and these are mine. There isn’t a single human being
who doesn’t have some sort of constraint of their lives. Be it money, time, love, energy or
motivation, no one can achieve exactly what they want, when they want to. That’s just not
how life works, not unfortunately, not sadly, just realistically.

None of my issues have emerged because I was bad or made wrong decisions (a weird
thought all chronic illness sufferers have). My circumstances are just the sum of my
experiences, some of which were good, some bad. I don’t have anything to prove by achieving
everything I want in a set time limit, I just have to enjoy life and be happy. I don’t even have to
do that. The wonderful thing about life is that there is no set path, the limit is our own
imagination and resourcefulness. We all just need to slow down and smell the lemons.
(Another proverb I might have wrong.)

I’m glad that I’m unable to do the full time course, it will widen my view to include more time
with friends, family and my lovely dog. It also means I can spend as much time as I need on
fixing as many of my health issues as I can, It’ll be a bit of a DIY job but in two years time I
hope I’ll be further down the road of recovery, treatment and fulfillment.