Mojo and the Mess

I didn’t think my twenties would feel like this.

I thought they’d be loud.

Messy in a fun way.

Full of plans I’d eventually figure out.

Instead, my twenties feel… fragile.

They feel like holding something breakable and being told to act normal while doing it.

I hear people talk about this decade like it’s disposable —

your hot mess era

your trial run

the years you mess up before it all makes sense.

But when you’re sick, nothing feels disposable.

Every year feels heavy.

Every birthday feels loaded.

Every “maybe later” sounds like a question mark instead of a promise.

I don’t get to be reckless with time.

I don’t get to assume there’s plenty of it.

That’s the part no one warns you about.

There’s a specific grief that comes with being young and very aware of mortality.

It’s not dramatic.

It’s quiet.

It sneaks up on you in the middle of normal days.

At the grocery store.

In the shower.

When someone asks what you’re doing “next year.”

I still want things.

I still dream.

I still imagine versions of my life that feel soft and ordinary.

But everything has an asterisk now.

If my body cooperates.

If treatment works.

If I feel okay.

If I’m still here.

I hate that my future sentences don’t get to end cleanly.

People my age are building lives.

Careers.

Families.

Five-year plans.

I’m building stamina.

Tolerance.

A relationship with uncertainty.

I’m learning how to sit with fear without letting it swallow me whole.

How to celebrate good news without bracing for the fall.

How to live without guarantees.

That’s not what I thought my twenties would teach me.

Some days I feel older than everyone around me.

Like I’ve seen too much.

Like my body has lived a life my face doesn’t show.

Other days I feel unbearably young.

Like a kid pretending to understand conversations about prognosis and options and odds.

Like someone playing dress-up in appointments and paperwork and survival.

Both things can be true.

That’s the strangest part — how you can feel ancient and infantile at the same time.

I don’t want my twenties to be defined by illness.

But I also refuse to pretend it hasn’t shaped me.

It’s changed how I love.

How I prioritize.

How I see people leave and stay.

It’s stripped things down to the basics:

What actually matters.

Who actually shows up.

What I can live without.

There’s no room for bullshit when you’re this tired.

I grieve the version of me who didn’t know this life.

The girl who thought time was abundant.

Who assumed her body was reliable.

Who didn’t flinch at long-term plans.

I miss her.

But I’m also learning to sit with who I am now.

Someone softer.

Someone more honest.

Someone who feels everything deeply because she has to.

My twenties aren’t what I imagined.

They’re quieter.

Heavier.

More uncertain.

But they’re also real.

And right now, that’s enough.

I’m still here.

Still living.

Still trying.

Even if it looks nothing like the version I planned.

—

If you’re in this strange in-between too — young, scared, grieving a life that isn’t gone but isn’t guaranteed — you’re not alone.

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