It all started with the lemons.

Growing up in Santa Barbara, my parents liked to tell this glowing story about “our family’s gift.” We were conversational alchemists, they bragged, able to take life’s lemons and turn them into the freshest, zestiest lemonade. My mom would recount examples with the grandiosity of a Shakespearean bard: “Remember when your middle school play got canceled, and we turned it into a backyard performance that brought the neighbors together? Lemonade! Or when your eighth-grade camping trip got rained out, and we made it about family game night by the fireplace?” Lemonade, lemonade, lemonade.

It was a charming origin story for a family: setbacks would be met with ingenuity, and obstacles would yield opportunities. Growing up, I clung to this myth like sunscreen on a cloudy day—trusting it would shield me from life’s gloomier moments.

But as I got older, I started to see the sticky residue that story left behind, and spoiler alert: it had nothing to do with lemons.

The Lemonade Myth Goes Sour

Don’t get me wrong, the optimism was helpful—especially as a teenager with raging hormones, an unruly cowlick, and a less-than-stellar track record for asking girls out at school dances. My parents’ mindset gave me a framework for resilience. Didn’t get invited to that sleepover? Lemonade. Accidentally hit “reply all” on the entire seventh-grade email list? Lemonade.

But here’s what didn’t register until much, much later: this “gift” came with a caveat. It never seemed to apply to actual emotions. If life handed me lemons, sure, I could juggle them or blend them or make a daiquiri. But if what I really wanted—or needed—was to just sit and feel sour for a while? Well, that was a problem.

This “lemons into lemonade” mentality wasn’t just a feel-good family ritual. It became a kind of reflexive avoidance strategy—dodging the bitter in favor of a forced sweet. Sadness, anger, disappointment? Slap some sugar on it and keep smiling. Any attempt to set those feelings out on the counter to be properly examined and addressed felt like breaking some unspoken family code. We were fine. We were fine in all caps, fine in embroidered pillows on a bed, fine in perfumed calligraphy over a dinner table centerpiece.

And honestly? It kind of worked, for a while. Until, of course, it didn’t.

Life’s Lemons Come in Bulk

The first crack in the lemon myth came during my post-college years when I moved to Santa Monica and found myself, much like a poorly positioned beach umbrella, completely unmoored. I’d broken up with a girlfriend of three years, left a perfectly logical career in environmental consulting, and hadn’t yet found my footing as a writer. The “just add optimism!” approach my family modeled for me no longer held up.

For a while, I tried to double down on the myth. I acted like my setbacks were cute plot twists instead of what they actually were: scary, confusing, and isolating. “Oh, I’m just exploring my options!” I’d say about quitting my job, while quietly Googling “Does everyone feel lost in their 20s, or is it just me?” I’d tell friends, “Yeah, I’m just focusing on me now!” about my breakup but then sit through The Graduate for the third time in a week, sprawled across my couch, questioning every decision I’d ever made.

Eventually, it caught up to me. There’s only so much lemon-spinning you can do before the fruit rots. Cue emotional burnout, a weird rash on my arm (stress is wild, man), and finally, therapy.

Lessons from the Lemon Cart

Turns out, therapy has this beautiful way of cutting through the sticky layers of story you’ve layered over your life. And let me tell you, uncovering the truth about my family’s “lemonade” strategy was both relieving and deeply uncomfortable. Turns out, it wasn’t a magical superpower so much as a highly curated avoidance mechanism.

Why confront pain when you can rebrand it as a quirky anecdote? Why feel fear when you can gloss over it with unflinching optimism?

A recurring theme with my therapist was learning how to sit with what she called “the sour.” It’s not like I abandoned hope altogether—this isn’t the gritty reboot of Eeyore: The Backstory. But I started to see how stepping directly into life’s less-than-pleasant moments was often the most important part of genuinely moving through them.

I spoke more openly with my friends about what I was going through instead of pretending I was fine. I started journaling instead of trying to narrate my life like I was writing a screen adaptation of Little Miss Sunshine. Slowly, I even began to let go of the guilt associated with feeling less-than-fine around my family.

Dating While Deconstructing

And because life demands irony, this whole realization coincided with me getting back into the dating world. Let me just say, it’s humbling to chat with someone over kombucha flights and realize you’ve been emotional baggage-checking since age twelve.

But here’s the silver lining: learning to embrace the sour side of life has completely transformed the way I approach connections. I don’t dodge conversations about past heartbreaks or failures anymore. I’m honest about times I’ve struggled, and weirdly, it’s made first dates feel way less awkward. Vulnerability has this insane way of cutting through the small talk and opening up actual, meaningful conversations.

For example, I once bonded with someone over the uniquely tragic combination of bad Wi-Fi, spilled coffee, and a mid-morning existential crisis. We laughed about it, but we also talked seriously about how those non-glamorous moments make you reimagine what you really value in life (spoiler: it’s not coffee or perfectly curated Zoom backgrounds).

Letting the Sour Balance the Sweet

So here’s my takeaway: sometimes, life hands you lemons and all you really need to do is… taste them. Let them hit your tongue with their full, no-punches-pulled tartness. Feel the sting and let it teach you something. Not everything has to be repackaged into lemonade.

And when it comes to relationships, this has been a revelation. I used to think part of dating was presenting myself as some neatly polished pitcher of sunny citrus joy. But the messier, unfiltered version of me? That’s where the real connections happen.

The truth is, life isn’t a perfect recipe. It’s a mix of flavors, and honestly, who puts sugar in everything? Sometimes it’s sour that reminds you you’re alive. And sometimes, the hardest relationships—the ones with yourself, with your family, with people you’re just beginning to meet—aren’t about making things sweet. They’re about making them real.

So, I’ll leave you with this: if you were raised on your own family myth, whether it’s about lemonade or self-reliance or being the “perfect” partner, don’t be afraid to question it. Get your hands sticky. Let your cheeks pucker. Dare to embrace the sour.

And, on occasion, maybe skip the lemonade entirely.