"You Either Live Together or You Die Alone"

The next step in recovery happened yesterday when my caretaker, Adriane, headed back to Manitoba. She was a wonderful help during the day to day like helping prepare the food and doing some light housework. I would try to help sometimes, and she got angry at me. She was insistent that I was supposed to rest and recover. My schedule was shaped by hers because she was still working remotely for her job.

I think the obvious deficit of her being gone is not the chores and aid she gave me, as helpful as those were! I can handle all those things. The thing I'm going to miss is the presence of someone who cares.

Whether it was going for my mandatory walks, or watching both seasons of the After Party, almost all of the Righteous Gemstones, or just passing the time talking about a range of things, the truth is, it's friends and people that care about you that make hard situations tolerable.

I've been posting a lot of dumb videos over the course of this and that has been fun, but it's only fun when there's people to share them with.

Before the surgery, it was harder to be by myself and walk around freely than it was for tubes coming out of my chest, neck, and urethra but having people there to be at my side or visiting.

I get that we shouldn't be looking to others for validation or trying to people please or be codependent or enmeshed with others, but what makes life good is sharing life with others.

I think that's one of the big takeaways of this whole situation for me. It's something I've believed for a long time and highlighted by one of my favorite stories, Lost. That show's mantra was "Either we live together or we die alone." Everything good that has come from humanity was because we were there for each other.

So, I suppose that means for me, that it will be important that I try to arrange times to see more friends throughout the rest of this recovery especially now that Adriane has gone.

Thank you, again, Adriane. I am so fortunate to have a friend like you during a time like this.