I always thought my twenties would be loud — full of beginnings, full of figuring myself out, full of becoming whoever I was meant to be.
Everyone tells you your twenties are for building a life. Mine became about learning how to hold one.
Because nothing prepares you for hearing the words “terminal” and “twenties” in the same breath. Nothing prepares you for the doctor’s face softening in a way that tells you your life just split into a Before and an After. Nothing prepares you for realizing you’re too young for people to understand the depth of your grief… and somehow still too old for anyone to believe you’re allowed to break.
People call me “strong” like it’s a compliment, but the truth is… strength was never the plan. Strength is what grows in the cracks after everything else shatters.
I never expected to be the girl whose purse is lighter than her pill organizer.
The girl who can read a lab report better than most people can read their horoscope.
The girl who can tell what day of the week it is by which floor of the hospital she’s on.
I thought I’d be planning vacations, not chemo cycles.
I thought I’d be decorating a first home, not memorizing the sound of infusion pumps.
I thought I’d be choosing baby names, not choosing which side effects I can tolerate.
You don’t think about things like this at twenty-something. You think you have time. You think life stretches out in front of you, and the biggest decisions you’ll face are career moves or relationship choices or which friend’s wedding you can afford to attend.
But illness doesn’t ask if it’s a good time. It doesn’t check your age before it rewrites your entire story.
In the beginning, I tried to keep up. God, did I try.
I’d watch my friends announce their promotions, their engagements, their pregnancies… and I’d smile for them, genuinely, while a quiet grief settled into my bones. I’d scroll through their milestones and wonder what mine would look like — if mine would ever come. If I’d ever get the chance.
It felt like standing at the starting line of a race I trained for, only to be told the finish line was being moved closer. Shorter. Unfairly close.
And then, somewhere in the middle of a life I didn’t ask for — I stopped comparing.
Because even though cancer took so much, it didn’t take everything.
Somewhere between the hospital hallways and the long nights whispering to myself, “You can survive this one more day,” I realized:
I am still living.
Just differently.
Just softer.
Just with more intention than I ever had before.
Living looks like sitting outside with Pete, letting the sun warm a body that’s tired in ways most people my age can’t imagine.
Living looks like writing this blog, knowing my words might be the thing that outlives me — my fingerprints on the world, proof I was here.
Living looks like Mojo snoring against my leg while tears hit my shirt, and somehow that small weight making everything feel a little less impossible.
I used to think the measure of a life was its length.
Now I know it’s the depth.
Maybe my life won’t be long.
But it will be full.
Full of love that held me together when medicine couldn’t.
Full of tiny, unforgettable moments — a hand held, a laugh shared, a sunset caught on a day I wasn’t sure I’d make it to.
Full of proof that even in the hardest chapters, I didn’t stop being human. I didn’t stop being me.
My twenties didn’t go as planned.
But they were real.
They were mine.
And they taught me more about grace, fragility, courage, grief, stubborn hope, and what it truly means to keep going than most people learn in a lifetime.
I didn’t get the decade I imagined. But I got the decade that changed me. And maybe… that’s its own kind of miracle.
Mojo’s POV
Mom keeps saying “terminal” like it means something is ending, but I don’t see anything ending.
I still wake her up every morning for breakfast.
I still make her laugh when she wants to cry.
I still nudge her hand when she forgets she doesn’t have to be strong every second.
I still curl up against her chest every night so she remembers she’s never facing the dark alone.
If you ask me, her twenties weren’t terminal. They were unstoppable. They were powerful. They were proof that even on the hardest days, she kept choosing love, choosing people, choosing moments, choosing life.
And if love could fix her? She’d have been cured a thousand times over — by me, by Pete, by every person who’s held her story close.
Closing Note
To anyone living on borrowed time — you’re not running out of life. You’re just living it with an intensity the world will never forget. You’re loving harder, feeling deeper, speaking louder, and leaving fingerprints on people’s hearts without even trying.
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