Why is a cancer like a house?

This week, Joy is staying with her grandparents while she tries out her new school in Northumberland. (It is the school I went to. We were shown round by my old maths teacher. Weird.) Alan, Ned and I are going up to join her on Thursday when we’ll got to look at some houses, and some dogs. (When we move Joy is to have her biggest wish: a four legged friend. Probably a retired greyhound.) Everything is falling into place for our move. (If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, look  here.)

Except.

We haven’t sold our house.

Or rather, we have hypothetically sold our house twice, but the sale has fallen through both times, once because someone forgot to count their money before they decided to move, and once due to what I can only describe as general flightiness. Ho hum.

Because doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result makes no sense, we are changing estate agent. (Our current agent is very nice but seems to spend more time thinking up excuses about why the house isn’t selling instead of, y’know, selling the house. Recently these excuses have included: tennis at Wimbledon; World Cup football; hot weather; school holidays approaching; and my phone not taking calls when I was in Dublin for the day – even though I had access to email and the agent had Alan’s number. Sheesh.) The new agent – recommended by the lovely @JessRuston on Twitter - is coming to take photos today and I have every confidence that the house will be sold by the end of the week. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Alan laughing and saying something along the lines of, ‘You’ve said that every week since March.’ He’ll see.)

Until last week, when I realised (a) how ineffective our agents have been, except at excuses and (b) how soon September is, I was quite laid back. Last week I got all un-laid back. I  cried in a restaurant, I was grumpy and snappy, I made schoolgirl errors in my knitting. I behaved, in short, like I did when I was first diagnosed with a breast cancer.

I’ve talked to my Mum, my best friend, a couple of colleagues, a woman in a coffee shop, and a florist about it all. (I was buying armfuls of lilies and sunflowers in Operation Tart The House Up. I also have aspirational tea towels and over glove from Cath Kidston that only come out for viewings, orchids, and ankle deep bath mats. No-one can accuse me of not trying.)  Everyone I have spoken to has been sympathetic and empathetic. They’ve said things like, “I know two people who have sold their houses in the last three weeks. Yours won’t take long,” or “Poor you, how awful. Still, you only need one person to fall in love with your house,” and “Don’t worry. It will all come right. It happened to us too but it does work out in the end.”

It struck me that people can easily sympathise and empathise with my unsold house in a way that many struggle to with cancer. OK, cancer is a different category of bad news. But not that different. Moving house disrupts your life, and, if you’re as much of a homebody as I am, disrupts your heart and soul too. It means you have to make all sorts of adjustments. You have to work out what really matters to you and what you are prepared to compromise on. You have to put things away because you don’t have time and space for them right now. You have to do a lot of stuff that you would really rather not be doing. You get tired and cross.

Obviously (unless you’re really unlucky with a bookcase or a piano) moving house is unlikely to kill you. But, according to new research conducted by Cancer Research UK, cancer is not as likely to kill you as it used to be, either. So maybe the next time someone tells you they have a cancer, and you’re not sure what to say, remember how you felt last time you bought or sold a house and talk to them from that mix of hope, despair, stress and annoyment.

This might sound flippant or silly, but it isn’t. If you haven’t experienced cancer but you have experienced a house move you are likely to have gone through a lot of the same emotions, ups and downs, and disruptions. It might not be the same, but it’s similar. And if you can draw on that in your reaction, you’ll be able to be more supportive and helpful than you know.

(Oh, and if you’re thinking annoyment isn’t a word, read this post.)