Mojo and the Mess

I wish I could sit across from you, coffee between us, and tell you the truth before the storm hits.
I wish I could tell you that your life will not just change — it will split into a before and an after, and you’ll never get the before back.

I wish I could tell you that one day you’ll wake up, look in the mirror, and not recognize the body staring back at you. You’ll see the scars before you see your own eyes. You’ll trace the changes with your hands, trying to remember where softness used to be. You’ll feel the jagged places — the ones the surgeons left, the ones chemo hollowed out — and you’ll think, This isn’t mine anymore.

You’ll feel stripped of the things that once made you feel like a woman. Your hair, your shape, your skin — all altered without your permission. And even though people will tell you you’re still beautiful, you’ll have days where the word feels like it belongs to someone else.

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The Loss You Can’t See in Scans

Cancer will take more than your health.
It will take your ease, your innocence, your ability to live without doing quiet calculations of how much time you might have.

You’ll grieve in layers — for the girl who didn’t know what “metastatic” meant, for the girl who could wear whatever she wanted without worrying if it rubbed against a port, for the girl who wasn’t tired before the day even started.

You’ll miss her laugh — not the sound of it, but the way it used to come without thinking. You’ll miss the way she made plans without adding silent disclaimers: if I’m well enough, if I’m still here, if my counts are good.

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The Quiet Kind of Loneliness

People will tell you they’re here for you, and some will mean it. But some will fade because the weight of your reality is too heavy for them to keep carrying. You will stop expecting certain names to light up your phone. You’ll feel the sting when someone who once swore they’d be by your side goes silent.

And you will sit in rooms full of people you love, feeling like a ghost in your own life. They’ll laugh at something you can’t quite hear because you’re somewhere else — in your head, in the what-ifs, in the memories of the girl you were.

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The Guilt You Carry

Every appointment, every treatment, every moment someone rearranges their life for you — it will pile onto a quiet mountain of guilt. You will feel like a burden, even when they swear you’re not. You will apologize for the cost of staying alive. You will apologize for needing so much.

And the worst part? You will feel guilty for not being stronger, for not being the brave, shiny version of a cancer patient that people like to celebrate. You will feel guilty for being human.

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From Where I Am Now

If I could tell you anything, it would be this:
You will keep going, even on days you don’t want to.
You will laugh again, even if it feels strange in your mouth at first.
You will love, deeply and stubbornly, even with fear threading through every moment.

But I won’t lie to you. I am still sad. I am still depressed. I still feel broken. I still look in the mirror and wonder where I went. I still ache for the girl who didn’t know.

I’m learning — slowly, painfully — that I am not less of a woman, even when I feel like I’ve been hollowed out. I’m not less of a person, even on days I feel invisible.
And you, my before-self, won’t be either.

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