Losing Your Job, Part Three (Finale)

Posted on May 26, 2012. Filed under: My Lemon Recipes | Tags: behavior, character, constance j peak, constancejpeak, encouraging words, faith, inspirational, leadership, limiting beliefs, mentor, morelemonsplease.com, mviadvisors, mviadvisors.com, prison |

This is the last of this series on my blog, www.MoreLemonsPlease.com, but not the end of the story.

Life is not a straight line. If it were, I’d be a veterinarian. Life has twists and turns, and nothing is promised, other than nobody gets out of this life alive (except Enoch and Elijah). I’m not religious, but I am a woman of faith, and I have relied on my faith to turn the corners of life. When my parents fell ill almost at the same time, I left my veterinary studies and joined law enforcement. When I got fired, I took on modeling and ran an apparel company (and still DJ’ed around the US and Canada). I accomplished things I never pictured myself doing. Now that I was separated from the apparel company and was driving back to NJ from the St. Louis area, I found myself crying from the instability of my circumstances (no job, no home, almost broke, etc), but little did I know I was driving smack dab into a reality check.

I made it as far as Indianapolis (Nap Town!). All the time I was in the Midwest, I didn’t experience any tornados. That day, I drove into my first tornado. No, make that FIVE tornados!!! It was May 1999 and the area had five different sightings. I stopped crying about instability, and prayed to see tomorrow. I remember the howling, how the sky lit up. It was unreal and I was scared, and alone, painfully alone. I managed to get a call in to my mom before the power lines went dead. There was one conversation left for me to have.

I got down on my knees.

The next day, my Chulo (Toyota 4Runner) was waiting for me, not a scratch on him! I found a working payphone and called Mom. She told me mail just came and there was a letter from the State of NJ. They wanted to settle out of court and give me my job back. Life made another turn in 24 hours time, and faith kept me on course. I was reinstated time and position-wise, but of course they weren’t giving back pay (that would be another lawsuit). I walked back in and those that caused the issues tread lightly in my presence. Those that were victimized, officers and inmates alike, called upon me to help them with their challenges and issues of injustice. They knew I was fighter, but more importantly, I knew I was a fighter. I knew I was a survivor. I knew the challenges, the lemons of life, were there for a reason, even if we don’t know or see why immediately. I accepted life’s lemons, and made it my business (literally and figuratively) to amass as many recipes to deal with all these dang lemons, giving thanks for each one. Even my car accident in 2002 which left me with permanent injuries was a blessing. I have no regrets on this journey.

To close this series, there are certain things I would hope the reader could take away. Life is tricky. We all have challenges. Our challenges shape us because we are works in progress, and we come out of it sculpted as works of art. That’s character. Some of us are “pieces of work” as some folk would describe it. We ALL are the offspring of survivors and fighters. We all have it in us to take adversity and reverse its course. Hope and Love will forever be your friend and often show up when you are alone. Looking at these, my hope for the reader is to take those lemons, create something beautiful from them, then turn to this big ole’ world and say “More Lemons Please”.

Feel free to drop me a line and share your recipes.