When Life Gives You Lemons

🍋 When Life Gives You Lemons…
Recently, I lost a collection of files I really wish I still had.
Was it life-threatening? No.
Was it disappointing? Absolutely.
We’re allowed to feel frustrated when something goes wrong. Acceptance doesn’t mean pretending the loss didn’t matter—it means recognizing when it has already taken enough of our time, energy, and peace of mind.
Today on Being Mary, I’m talking about spilled milk, sour lemons, impulsive decisions, and learning to carry the lesson instead of the loss.
And the moral of the story?
Sometimes…shit happens. Back it up. 🤷‍♀️😂
🎙️ Watch or listen today, and tell me: Have you ever had to accept something you couldn’t fix and simply move forward?

Transcript

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Hi… I’m Mary. And this is Being Mary — where we talk about growing older, staying curious, and living fully in the chapter we’re in.

You’ve probably heard the expression:

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

It’s a little corny, I know.

There’s also:

“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”

And, of course:

“Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.”

We have so many sayings about accepting what happens and moving on. I imagine they all began with people who faced disappointments of their own and had to figure out what to do next.

Recently, I had one of those moments.

I lost a collection of files on my computer—notes, ideas, and work I had saved from many of my podcasts.

Now, let me be clear: this wasn’t life-threatening. Nobody was hurt. It wasn’t a tragedy.

But it was still disappointing.

Those files represented a lot of time, thought, and creativity. They held pieces of conversations, ideas I wanted to return to, and memories of the work I had done.

And suddenly, they were gone.

My first reaction was to fix it.

I wanted to find those files, recover them, reorganize everything, and put it all back exactly where it belonged.

Because I like things cleaned up and organized.

Just not quite this cleaned up!

Apparently, my computer took me a little too literally.

I also have to admit that I can be a little rammy and impulsive. When I decide something needs to be cleaned up, I want it done—and I want it done now.

Sometimes that works beautifully.

Other times…well, sometimes you delete things you wish you hadn’t.

At first, I was frustrated with myself. I kept thinking about what I had lost and wondering whether there was one more thing I could try to get it back.

But after a semi-good night’s sleep, something changed.

I realized that if those files couldn’t be recovered, I was going to be okay.

I still had my Excel sheet of podcast ideas. My past podcasts were still on social media. Many of our notes and conversations could be found again. And most importantly, the experiences and lessons behind those stories were still mine.

The files were gone.

But the life I had lived—and the person I had become while creating them—wasn’t.

That’s when I started thinking about spilled milk.

When something spills, we’re allowed to be upset. We might even stand there for a moment and say a few words that probably shouldn’t be repeated on a family podcast.

But eventually, we have to clean it up.

Standing there staring at the puddle won’t put the milk back in the glass.

And I think life can be like that too.

Things happen that we cannot control. Plans change. Something breaks. We lose something important. Someone disappoints us—or we disappoint ourselves.

And then we have a choice.

Do we fret and think, “Oh, woe is me”?

Maybe—for a little while.

Do we sit with the disappointment, hurt, or anger?

Absolutely.

I don’t believe in pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t. I don’t want to cover every difficult experience with a cheerful little saying and call it positivity.

Sometimes something hurts.

Sometimes it makes us angry.

Sometimes we need to admit, “I really wish this hadn’t happened.”

Moving forward doesn’t mean those feelings weren’t real. Acceptance isn’t pretending the loss didn’t matter.

It simply means recognizing when something has already taken enough from us.

The loss itself costs us something.

But continuing to carry it can cost us even more—our time, our energy, our peace of mind, and sometimes our ability to notice the good things that are still right in front of us.

In some respects, accepting the loss actually felt good.

Not because losing the files was enjoyable. It wasn’t.

It felt good because I could finally put down the weight of trying to change something that had already happened.

I could stop asking, “How do I undo this?”

And start asking, “What do I do next?”

I can learn from it.

I can make backups.

I can slow down before pressing Delete.

I can be better prepared in the future.

And yes, I can try to be a little less rammy.

I said try. Let’s not expect miracles here!

Maybe that’s what making lemonade really means.

It isn’t forcing ourselves to be cheerful about the lemons. It’s acknowledging that they’re sour, deciding what we can learn from them, and then doing something useful with what remains.

Sometimes life doesn’t give us a choice about what happens.

But we still have some choice in what happens next.

We can carry the disappointment forever, or we can carry the lesson forward instead.

I lost some files that I wish I still had.

I can’t change that.

But I can change what I do next.

Sometimes life doesn’t just teach us through the beautiful moments.

Sometimes it teaches us through the backups we forgot to make.

So, what is the moral of this story?

Don’t cry too long over spilled milk. Clean it up and move on.

When life gives you lemons, take a breath before making the lemonade.

And sometimes…shit happens.

Back it up.

This is Being Mary… and remember the best chapters are still ahead.