When Life Hands you a Lemon Tree

From that first lemon tree I got a great education, and a thirst for learning, I recovered my self esteem. Over time, I even managed to overcome the physical difficulties for the most part, and to live a normal life. And, I got a career - as a professional instead of the underpaid clerk I had been when those first lemons grew ripe.

Now that is lemonade - to go from hearing "Miss Wilkie, would you file these please?", knowing that a job well done only meant more filing the next day, to "Dr. Wallace, can I have a moment of your time?" Limitless potential, or so it seemed.

But twenty years of that can burn you out. I soon heard the back of my mind muttering the old familiar tune - except with a difference. Those moments of my time - seemed like someone was always wanting them. I wanted some to myself. I wanted to stay home. Spring would come and I had to dash by the daffodils to go talk to 40 reluctant students about libel law. I wanted to stay home and plant seeds in fertile soil instead of wisdom in reluctant minds. I wanted to write papers instead of grading them. Papers on gardening. On color, design - on tacky yard art. I wanted to lighten up.

And then came Lemon Tree number 2. Dragging myself though summer and blaming it on the heat and drought. Dragging myself through most of the semester at school, missing far too many classes, feeling far too tired and pain-filled to tackle anyone's papers - mine or the students.

Fibromyalgia. Enough that I qualified for total disability from school. I had all the time in the world to stay home and write - except that typing can be painful. And what about gardening? How do you garden when it hurts to move? Or when you are plagued with a brain fog that makes you look at your husband and say, "I'm sorry. I'm blocking on your name." I was about to do the teary eyed, throw-in-the-towel sort of thing when I stopped to think Can we make lemonade again?

The answer is yes. Lemonade, Lemon meringue pie - you name it. So resoundingly yes that I have been known to dance (somewhat stiffly, to be sure) around saying "Fibro may be my biggest break yet!"

You may ask, "How can this be?" And I'll tell

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