Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

by Lori Gottlieb

But at least I don’t have cancer, Julie thought as she left the hospital she knew so well by then. This time, she’d been there for a “normal” problem for people her age. Lots of people miscarried in those early weeks, her obstetrician explained. Julie’s body had been through a lot. “It’s just one of those things,” her doctor had said. And for the first time in her life, Julie, who had always lived in the land of rational explanations, was content with this answer. After all, every time the doctors had a reason for something, the reason was devastating. Fate, bad luck, probability—any of those seemed like a welcome respite from a dismal diagnosis. Now when her computer crashed or a pipe burst in the kitchen, she’d say, It’s just one of those things. The phrase made her smile. It could work both ways, she decided. How many times do good things inexplicably come our way too? Just the other day, she told me, some random person walked into Trader Joe’s with a homeless woman who’d been sitting in the parking lot and said to Julie, “See that woman over there? I told her to buy herself some food. When she gets to the register, come find me and I’ll pay the bill.” Relating the story to Matt after work, Julie shook her head and said, It was just one of those things.