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What brought you joy today?

Posted by northoftheborder @northoftheborder, Jun 28, 2024

If you've been living with cancer for a while, you know it's not all gloom and doom. Where did you find joy today? I'll start:

1. Working in my garden.
2. Meeting my daughter for tea.
3. Home-made pizza for dinner.
4. My spouse (always).
5. Some interesting online discussions.
6. Rereading a good novel.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Cancer Support Group.

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northoftheborder | @northoftheborder | 10 hours ago

What brought me joy today was installing the new flush-mounted medicine cabinet in the bathroom as a surprise for my spouse when she gets home tomorrow (it's been sitting in its box in the living room for a week).

I'm not a super handy guy, but disabled ≠ unable (take that, spinal compression!), and I even managed to drill new mounting holes in the aluminum sides. I just need to do a bit of plaster touch-up around the edges and put in the shelves.
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dailyeffort | @dailyeffort | 6 hours ago
In reply to @northoftheborder "What brought me joy today was installing the new flush-mounted medicine cabinet in the bathroom as..." + (show)
Profile picture for northoftheborder @northoftheborder

What brought me joy today was installing the new flush-mounted medicine cabinet in the bathroom as a surprise for my spouse when she gets home tomorrow (it's been sitting in its box in the living room for a week).

I'm not a super handy guy, but disabled ≠ unable (take that, spinal compression!), and I even managed to drill new mounting holes in the aluminum sides. I just need to do a bit of plaster touch-up around the edges and put in the shelves.

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@northoftheborder
You are a man of many talents! She will be pleased. Way to go, North!

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zenren14 | @zenren14 | 2 hours ago

sitting under a patio umbrella...grabba java...sipping thru the afternoon sun.

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zenren14 | @zenren14 | 1 hour ago
In reply to @northoftheborder "@zenren14 Yep. The best thing you can do with a bucket list is put it in..." + (show)
Profile picture for northoftheborder @northoftheborder

@zenren14 Yep. The best thing you can do with a bucket list is put it in a bucket and carry it out to the trash. I've never seen the point of gaping at things just to check them off a list. 🙂 The best moments travelling are the unexpected and unplanned ones.

In 2021, after my de-novo stage 4 diagnosis, when I was paralysed in a hospital bed and thinking I'd never walk again and live only a few more years, my thoughts weren't "I wish I'd made it to see Machu Picchu/walked the Camino/visited the Great Wall of China/hiked the Grand Canyon" or anything like that. They were "I wish I could go back home and walk down the street and buy groceries again, or sit in the local pizza restaurant with my spouse, or go to the family cottage." It turned out people who haven't faced death close up don't know what they're talking about when they drone on about "if you were going to die tomorrow...": there are no regrets about big headline-level things; the little things *are* the big things.

p.s. I was incredibly fortunate, and contrary to expectations in 2021, I can do all those "little things" again now.

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@northoftheborder

You had me at:
" the little things ARE the big things"
We only have a day to sieze.
The choice is ours to take.
Only if we can have a slice of pizza.
We miss what we can't have.
All trial n error though.
Hold our head high in the big blue sky.

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