It takes time to understand how to make lemonade out of something so bitter and so, generally, fruitless and often we do not possess that time. It is a luxury we sometimes have to live without and living without it can result in, occasionally, consequences which cannot be removed for perhaps a lifetime – but only if we let them. It is at these times when we have to find something and hold onto it for dear life – treasure it and never let it go. This is when your strength can actually begin to be truthfully tested. And I believe that strength can be found anywhere. In other words, to find something is to keep going - and that something is Strength.
Strengths can come and go and be emphasised or lined out at any time. They can suddenly lose you and this can bring horrific sadness, or perhaps shadowed hope that life sucks and there is no point to it anymore. However, if it is an honest strength – if it is genuine and truthful – it will always return; once pen touches paper it cannot reform to its original appearance. No matter how many times you think you have lost your strength, it will always come back to you because it believes in you.
Strengths, I think, can bring you dreams and it is dreams that fuel the fire. From October 2009 to about November 2010, I believe I survived what I think was the first toughest time of my life so far. During this time, one by one, I discovered five very different things that would soon turn out to be my strengths.
The first was one that I lost at the start and that was ‘The Saturdays’ fandom. It may be a laughable matter that this band and their fandom means so much to me but from what I can see, and from what I can tell, without them, I wouldn’t have had one of the best days in a long, long while. The Girls know who they are and they also know that whether I am speaking to them on tinychat or pegging it across Oxford with half eaten McDonalds, just to hear Frankie tell us that we all need to buy decent coats, I am content and I am away from whatever trouble is threatening the making of my lemonade. I am glad that I met them and I am glad that I have that day in Oxford as a keepsake. Arguably, this could be seen as a separate strength but I found this at the same time as the fandom so I’m going to count it as one. The musical, Wicked, is something that I will never be able to fully appreciate. Every time I see it, something different always, always shows up and the performers never, ever fail to impress, inspire and irrevocably shake me. I will never forget my first time seeing that show, and I will never forget the first time I sat at the front (well, second row – close enough).
The second strength I came across was someone who is now known as my mother’s second son. We didn’t meet in the greatest of circumstances and the first month of knowing him was slightly harder than it should have been, but I was meant to know this person and so here I stand a year later, pledging my gratitude for his presence in my lemonade-making. He knows me almost too well and because of this he now treats me like a younger sister and therefore I am continuously teased about my (to him) strange and unhealthy obsessions with certain things such as Higher singers and loser show choirs. Anyone? I also lost this guy last summer but basically, as I said above, he is a genuine strength to me and I need him in my life and I guess I am lucky in saying he came back and we are really close again. I love him, even if he does insist on calling me gay (really?) and being so competitive on certain home gaming activities. Brilliant.
My third discovery of strength was, as my second strength mocks me about, the loser show choir programme about a glee club called New Directions. I have been temporarily captivated by certain shows in the past but never to the extent that this one does. I can’t even begin to express my idolisation of what the show stands for and how they represent that through their characters and the actors who play those characters. You may think me shallow and “so twenty-first century” for saying this, but the characters, from where I’m standing, are heroes. The show acknowledges and respectfully explores bullying, drinking, peer pressure, eating disorders, sexuality, religion, mental illness, race, death, bereavement, cancer and marriage with such a warm and accepting embrace that it is almost impossible not to fall in love with what it stands for. Never mind the singing and dancing and the ‘gleeified’ gloss that the show is finished off with – look past it and see a detailed portrayal of a culture and a society in which we are all trying to make lemonade from. We are all losers. And that is why this is my third strength. And I can tell you wanna be a loser like me. I can tell.
My fourth is perhaps the brightest in terms of freshness and colour; it really helped to lay a hand on the grave of damn sadness. It involves two people – one of which is a fellow midget of mine and the other, a selfless and wonderful Les Mis’ lover with the most hilarious natural sense of humour and comedy timing. Both have brought with them a kind of consistency that I think was lacking before. I could not have come to school every day this last school year without knowing I was going to see Melissa’s beautiful (if not rapey) face to greet me and Sam’s cheerful smile and rainbow coloured shoes to lighten the morning first thing. I have never made the trek into town with these two as often as I have this last year and more than absolutely anything, I thank them for finding my laugh again. They say that a day is mostly wasted if it does not hold at least one laugh and I had plenty of those before I met these two. They’ve added the sugar to my lemonade.
And the final strength is one in which I didn’t realise I had all along. I thought they weren’t helping at all and I truly believed this until my mum met this springer spaniel called Ralph. The dog wasn’t actually the specific and main reason, it’s just that, for me, he seemed to bring the family together and I began thinking that actually, my mum does know best and I saw that her happiness encouraged both my sister’s happiness which sparked my brother’s happiness, making my dad even more happy. And as I stopped to think about the things they have all told me, I began to think of everything my wider family has told me and then to my chosen family - my best friends and my blood sisters. And onto my pets, my baby boy Scooby and my little girl, Lucia - even my six chickens, Minge, Tesco, Genie, Nala, Brittany and Santana and to Ralph, the little dog that made me realise. My family is my biggest strength-giver and for me, they provide not only the fizz to my lemonade, but the tall, straight glass, the chilled, crisp ice, the curly whirly multicoloured straw and perhaps, if I’m lucky, the newly sprouted, lush green sprig of freshly picked mint.... (from my dad’s garden, naturally).
“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”
I love this poppy :) Im glad you can recognise your strengths. Keep making lemonade! :) xxx
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