Maybe We’ve Been Doing the Whole Lemon Thing Wrong
I was supposed to be waking up along the shores of Puglia, Italy, getting ready to welcome 14 women to La Seconda Primavera, a retreat I’d poured so much of myself into creating.
Instead, I woke up in Frankfurt, Germany, recovering from jaw surgery.
Definitely not the September I had planned.
And while 14 women were arriving in Italy for an experience I’d been looking forward to sharing with them, I was watching it all unfold from afar.
A part of my heart was so sad.
I was disappointed. I felt a little ripped off. And frankly, I wished things had gone differently.
There was no need to dress that up, find the blessing or pretend I wasn’t hurting.
When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan
We’re so quick to want to make something good out of something difficult, aren’t we?
Find the silver lining. Look for the lesson. Make lemonade out of the lemons.
And while I appreciate the intention behind those ideas, I’ve never believed we have to turn every hard thing into something sweet.
We also don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt.
I couldn’t change the surgery, the timing or the fact that I wasn’t going to be in Italy. And as much as I wanted to be there, wishing things were different wasn’t going to change what was happening.
So I started journaling.
Not to figure out why this had happened. Not to uncover some grand lesson or convince myself that everything happens for a reason.
I sat with one very simple question.
What Else Is There?
What else is here that I might miss if I’m only looking at what didn’t go according to plan?
It’s a question that asks something different of me.
It doesn’t ask me to deny my disappointment, rise above it or make it mean something.
It simply asks me to look a little wider.
And over those next couple of days, what emerged felt really good.
I started to notice things that had been sitting quietly alongside the disappointment.
The extraordinary women who had helped bring La Seconda Primavera to life. The fact that something I helped create had roots strong enough to keep growing, even when I wasn’t there.
The people who had stepped in, stepped up and made it possible for 14 women to have the experience we’d envisioned.
And the realization that perhaps I didn’t have to be physically present for something I’d created to matter.
That one was big.
Somewhere inside this giant plot twist, I was open to noticing something I might never have recognized if life had gone according to plan.
Two Things Can Be True
I can be incredibly disappointed that I missed my retreat in Italy and deeply appreciative that it happened.
I can feel sad about what I lost and genuinely happy for the women who got to experience it.
I can wish things were different and still find something meaningful in what actually happened.
None of those things cancel each other out.
And I think that’s where we sometimes get ourselves tangled up. We assume that finding something good in a difficult experience means we must somehow be okay with the difficult experience itself.
But I don’t have to love what happened to appreciate what it’s given me.
It simply means I’m making room for what’s present alongside what’s hard.
Maybe We’ve Been Doing the Whole Lemon Thing Wrong
Maybe not everything needs to become lemonade.
Maybe sometimes life hands us something sour, disappointing, painful or wildly inconvenient, and we can call it exactly what it is.
And then, when we’re ready, we can get curious.
Not about how to fix it, justify it or turn it into a beautiful story.
But about what else might be there.
Something I helped create has roots strong enough to keep growing even when I’m not there.
I wouldn’t have chosen this experience as the way to discover that.
But I’m glad I noticed it.
And none of that changes the fact that I really, really wanted to be in Italy.
Both things are true.
So perhaps the next time life takes a sharp left when you were certain you were heading right, there’s another question worth asking.
What else is there?
Not instead of the disappointment.
Alongside it.
♥️
