What Do You Expect?

It had been a minor selling point, but one that had finally moved me into the "buy" column.  The neighborhood looked great, the condo was in good shape and had a really nice layout and design.  The complex even had a pool.  But the thing that finally helped sell me was the little lemon tree on the back patio.  Lemonade!

I looked forward to being closer to my new work and getting to know a new part of town.  I quickly discovered that from an upstairs window of my new condo I could watch the Disneyland fireworks every night, and it would soon be only a short walk to the new Starbucks under construction on the corner.  And the lemonade....I looked forward to the lemonade!

After a few years, though, it all proved to be a bit of a disappointment.  Oh, the fireworks were always good--but after a while running up the stairs to watch got kind of old.  The Starbucks was typically hot and fresh...but you know, sometimes it's nice to enjoy your morning coffee at home.  The pool that was right across the street turned out to be for the apartments there--our pool was a ten minute walk across a busy highway, and so I never really got in the habit.  And the lemons?  Well, even though I kept that tree nicely trimmed and it produced plenty of fruit each year, those lemons never seemed to be any good--after a while they would turn yellow, but they tasted funny and seemed to go bad before they were any good.

So after several years, when life called in a new direction and the "For Sale" sign went up, I wasn't very sad to go.  It had been a good place to live, but it never quite lived up to my expectations.  

It's a funny thing, though.  As I was packing up to go, that little lemon tree was just loaded with fruit--fruit that I'd learned would never make the lemonade I'd once looked forward to.  When I explained my disappointment to my partner, Ben-Andy, who was busy helping me pack, he took a closer look.

"Limes" he said.  

So there you have it.  For five years I'd hoped for fresh lemons and dreamed of lemonade.  For five years I'd been disappointed because a lime tree hadn't produced the lemons I'd expected, and watched as one beautiful crop of limes after another just rotted on the branches.  For five years I'd insisted on lemonade and never once heard that tree saying "Margaritas!"  

We all go through life with expectations, hopes and dreams.  But I wonder, sometimes, how often we miss the party that's within our grasp because our expectations have blinded us to life's glorious reality.  If life is handing us limes, instead of letting them just rot on the tree, maybe we should wake up and smell the coffee!

"Love," after all "does not insist on its own way."