Coping… with disappointment and distraction

Recently, I’ve been speaking to a lot of people about breast cancer. It’s for a book I’m working on, and one of the observations that comes up a lot is that a cancer diagnosis helps you put things in perspective. You no longer sweat the small stuff, or care about trivial inconveniences. Once you’re faced with the prospect of death up close, you find it difficult to care as your colleague complains she was given the wrong coffee in Pret.

To an extent, I agree. And this is not just a cancer thing; it can happen with any life event that causes proximity to death or grief. But sometimes there is so much pressure to ‘enjoy every moment’ and brush off life’s nuisances. Despite having had breast cancer, I do still get annoyed by annoying things. Last week, when our childcare fell through, it was really sad and difficult to accept that I was going to have to miss Glastonbury, despite having a ticket for the…