Some days just don’t work, and you can’t do a damn thing about it.
Maybe you slept poorly so you stay in bed too late, but no matter how long you lie there, you can’t muster an appetite for putting your feet on the floor, and getting up feels like giving up.
Maybe you feel a little better after coffee, and you start to get an idea of what you might use this free day for, this luxurious, wide-open day so full of potential, and you start to make a bit of a plan. Just a tiny, manageable plan, like going to the farmers market for some kale and oranges, because it’s winter and the oranges are at their best right now. It seems like a pretty easy win.
But after getting your kale and oranges, and shelling out ten bucks for a loaf of seedy sourdough bread that you know you’ll struggle to get through before it goes stale, maybe your feet don’t know which direction to move in. The people on the street seem to know where they’re going. They are shopping, and going to lunch, and taking pictures of each other, and you try not to find their purposefulness offensive and intimidating. You’re in everybody’s way, and no one is in your way because you don’t have a way today.
If you’re lucky, you’ll situate yourself on a rooftop with a view of the Hollywood sign and find a small, easy task to apply yourself to, like finishing a blog post that you started yesterday. But you’re not lucky, not today, so even though you manage to write it up pretty well, you lose an hour’s worth of work when the post fails to save. And of course, you didn’t back it up. So the sun dips lower in the sky and you are back at square one. And this is not a day for starting over.
Maybe you finally get the message about the pointlessness of this day when you unplug your car to drive home and it turns out it didn’t charge.
[Sigh.]
At this point, there’s nothing left to do but go home, make some hummus and eat it on a thick slice of the fancy bread, followed by an orange. And if that orange is the sweetest part of your day, then thank god for oranges.
xo
I think there’s a part of us that thinks we have to be productive every day and when we’re not our days aren’t worth anything. I think we have to shift this capitalistic way of looking at working at our life. We just have to enjoy the beauty of what we do otherwise, it is all judgement and judgement doesn’t make us happy. Life is what it is and it’s not always productive. It just is and the more I look at my unhappiness more I realize it is about this judgement.
Maggie- SO funny- just on my walk today I started pondering some sort of variation of the title of my book to be: "...when you keep thinking that you'll be drinking lemonade, but it still feels like lemons"... So it's wild that I just came across your article with lemons in the title! I love the title by the way! ...But also I loved your frank story telling in this piece. I mean it's just like that song: "momma told me there'd be days like this"...#truth... This line in particular was so on point: "you're in everyone's way, and no one is in your way because you don't have a way..." Such a relatable feeling is captured in that image and sentiment...