40 Comments

Those first two paragraphs do read like you are talking about my personal "traits". As the only son of five, the middle child, and a late bloomer, I tended to avoid competition at all costs but enjoyed sports that tested personal resolve. I recently had my hip redone, 14 years after the recall. Hospital stays are torture...all these people swarming around taking care of you. I once went to therapy due to some anxiety issues related to work....and one of my other "traits" was exposed when the therapist suggested that I might be addicted to "chaos". While I endeavored to end the chaos with little success, the knowledge of the issue allowed me to continue in my methods free of the debilitating anxiety. So now with your perceptive opening, I have yet another "trait" I can compartmentalize and address 14 years from now (at 87).

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Thank you so much for sharing, Rob. And hooray for 87! That’s awesome.

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Meaning I am now 73 and really battle being helped but in 14 years will confront it.

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Ha!

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Thanks for writing this piece. Earlier this year, I had thyroid cancer surgery. My closest family member lives 4 hours away, so I had to get help from friends. The day of the surgery, I needed to be at the hospital by 6am. I felt guilty that I had to get a friend out of bed at 430am to get me there. But that was me, not my friend. The most difficult thing about the surgery was to accept the idea that I had cancer. Me....have cancer? Impossible!! Other people get cancer. I also freaked out when the specialists said in rare instances one voice could be affected. I usually I keep these sorts of things within myself. But this time, I reached out to friends and told them about it. Leaning on them was the best mental health break I could have done for myself. I wish you the very best recovery. I recently subscribed and have found your videos informative and charming.

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Thank you so much for sharing this, Randy. I hope that your health is better after the surgery. It’s funny, isn’t it— we spend so much time worrying about troubling people or putting them out, but often it turns out, I think, that people are actually happy to be asked, happy to be leaned on…especially when it really matters.

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I'm so glad you were able to get some help and have a better recovery. My fingers are crossed it heals well and better sleeps are around the corner.

Ah, The Crown. I loved the Queen--the real one and all of the actresses who played her so beautifully in the series. P.S. You refer to her as "the former Queen." She will never be considered a former Queen." She is and always will be the Queen. ;)

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I also grew up with a sibling who had an illness. Everything you said about self-reliance made me feel seen and less alone. Thanks for sharing your experience. Very excited to watch Anora!

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Thank you for understanding and for reading.

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What a great accomplishment, letting yourself spend on others temporarily! I’m so happy that you’re healing and well on your way to being done. It sounds like a very tough journey.

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I'm glad you're feeling better but I'm even gladder that you, like me, didn't care for The Substance. At best, I thought it was meh. Its internal mythos wasn't consistent, I had so many questions, and I lost interest partway through.

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Couldn’t agree more.

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Sending you all good recovery thoughts! I had no idea about the crematorium podcast and off to listen -- I remember having to find out if a relative in Chattanooga had been sent there (he wasn't).

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wow, binge-watching the entirety of "the crown" is quite ambitious! i remember once binge-ing on this series called "time of death" while i had a bad cold with a heavy period and just sobbing and sobbing for two days straight. that show is HEAVY. i think it cleared my sinuses.

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If you're looking for some holiday music that won't drive you batty - how many times must we hear Mariah Carey and WHAM!? - give Ben Folds' October 2023 album "Sleigher" a listen. A good kind of holiday melancholy with a smooth cool vibe.

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I thought about you, Courtney, in the first weeks of your recovery and am so glad it seems to be progressing as well as it is.

We're still watching episodes of Say Nothing, based on the book of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It can be viewed as an amplification of part of The Crown. Having read the book, I still find Say Nothing inspiring, infuriating, and fascinating.

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I love his work! I will have to check this out, thank you!

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Thinking of you Courtney and sending good wishes!

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Oh God, do I identify with watching The Crown and then speaking like the characters for hours, and even days afterward. David and I are constantly speaking in accents anyway, but speaking like a royal was heavenly fun, especially with those scripts to quote. And then sometimes we'd transpose it to our life, like "I say, you may have warned me you had no intention of taking out the rubbish," saying something low rent in that high rent accent.

The one person you didn't dare start talking like was Prince Charles, because once you spoke out of one side of your mouth, it's hard to stop. And looking up while looking down like Lady Di. Enough to make the tops of your eyeballs ache.

Glad you asked for help and you're back en forme.

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Hysterical! The rubbish line made me guffaw.

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If you're open to another can't-stop-listening podcast... https://www.everythingisstories.com/portfolio-audio/thedisorientationofsurvivalpart1/

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followed by parts II and III

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Glad you are on the mend. I missed Killing Eve the first time around and watched all four seasons last week. Wow.

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We are all in this together-this journey called life.- Happy Healing!

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Happy to hear you have made it through the initial recovery period with (to paraphrase the Beatles) a little help from your friends. I have always had 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night (except the year I spent in Vietnam with someone trying to kill me almost every day); so I don't remember what it's like to not get enough sleep. I hope your surgery allows you to now get all the sleep you deserve.

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So glad to know you got the “radical rest” you needed - and this whole post restored some of my faith in humanity 😊

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Tall order! But I’m trying!

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