Some may be slightly confused by the title of this article but as a disclaimer, I will not be telling you how to make real lemonade. It’s purely metaphoric. As college students, we’ve all had our fair share of rollercoaster moments. Such is life, but, how we deal with those hills and valleys is what defines who we really are. I recently went through what felt like the deepest valley that I’ve ever experienced in my adult life. Depression, weight gain, and anxiety shook me to my very core. In the moment, I was hopeless, but looking back on it now, I wouldn’t trade my experience for the world. Now as a reader, you’re probably thinking, why the hell would she ever say this? Would she not trade losing what she thought was the love of her life and not being fit for the first time in her life for literally anything else?

For a little background on my story, I had lived with my previous boyfriend practically since we started dating. We really could not get enough of each other. As the relationship progressed, I became too comfortable. I was so content in our relationship that I wouldn’t dare to entertain ideas that problems could arise. That’s when my course load during the fall semester became too heavy a cross to bear. Enter the metaphorical lemons. As my academic career was in shambles, I turned to that same comfort that our relationship was perfect. Well, that, along with food and marijuana. I gained almost 30 pounds and I shielded myself from the truth. More lemons were being dumped on the ever-growing pile. As winter break came around, I was not ready to face the classes that I had to retake, that’s when he had suggested to me to check out USF’s geology program. It became my light at the end of what turned out to be a very long tunnel. Fast forward to a few months later where I continued to excel as a geology student, actively engaging in my classes and genuinely enjoying what I was studying. I was that first hill after a low valley and that’s when my hill suddenly turned into rock bottom (For any of those that have ridden SheiKra at Busch Gardens, that’s what it was like). He broke up with me.

The subsequent days following the split, I had not allowed myself to fully process what happened. I returned to my blissful shield that I had created to hide from the truth. Then after a wonderful month of traveling, that’s when my monster had come out of the shadows in the form of depression and anxiety. It became a chore to even get out of bed to eat or even go to the bathroom. The amount of lemons that had accumulated started to bury me. I became hopeless for the future, I contemplated why it was even worth living at that point. I pitied myself, something completely uncharacteristic of me. I didn’t know who the person staring back at me in the mirror was anymore.

One day while pining over clothes that I knew would not flatter my now expanded figure, something from my old self snapped into my thoughts. If my thoughts were colors, they’d be dark blues and greys; this thought was a blinding yellow. I said aloud “When am I going to stop pitying myself and actually do something about this?”. That’s when all the lemons that were piling up no longer felt like they would bury me. I got help in the form of a counselor at the USF Counseling Center. She opened countless doors for me. I finally got help for my ADHD and became in control of my anxiety instead of letting it control me. Once I was content with my progress, and myself, that’s when I started to become serious about losing weight. I shed those 30 pounds (and counting!) after three months, something that felt strangely analogous to my depression. I became well versed in the art of making lemonade.

I will not sit here and tell you that I have completely gotten rid of all the lemons that threatened to swallow me whole, it has only become more manageable. We will always have a pile of lemons at our feet, it’s how we decide to handle those speaks volumes. When people were continuously asking me how many pounds I had lost, how I did it and complimenting me on my figure, I always revert to that day in my living room. I continue to fight my demons, but instead of letting them win, I fight back with the best damn lemonade that I’ve ever made.