Mojo and the Mess

People talk about being alive like it’s the win.

Like once your heart is still beating, the rest should fall into place.

It doesn’t.

Being alive is biological.

Living is something else entirely.

Being alive is scans and labs and vitals.

Living is waking up and recognizing your own life.

Being alive is appointments stacked on top of appointments.

Living is not measuring your days in milligrams and side effects.

I am alive. That part is undeniable.

But some days, that’s the only box I can confidently check.

There’s this unspoken expectation that survival should feel like gratitude. That if you’re still here, you should be relieved. Motivated. Inspired. Productive. At peace.

But nobody prepares you for the in-between.

For the stretch of time where you don’t get better, but you don’t die either.

You exist.

You wait.

You manage.

You survive long enough for people to stop asking how you’re doing and start assuming you’re fine.

Being alive means people say things like, “At least you’re here,” as if that settles the conversation. As if being here automatically means being okay. As if staying breathing means you’re participating in life instead of just enduring it.

There’s a loneliness in that assumption.

Because living requires energy. It requires choice. It requires freedom.

And chronic illness, cancer, treatment, aftermath—they strip those things quietly, one decision at a time.

What you eat.

Where you go.

How long you can stay.

What your body will allow today.

Living becomes conditional.

Some days I don’t dream ahead. I don’t plan. I don’t imagine a future version of myself who is “back to normal.” I just make it through the day without unraveling completely.

That’s not living.

That’s maintaining.

And yet—here’s the part people miss—I’m still here.

Still thinking. Still feeling. Still wanting more than survival.

There’s grief in realizing that being alive isn’t enough to feel whole.

There’s guilt in admitting that sometimes survival feels heavy instead of triumphant.

But naming it doesn’t make me ungrateful.

It makes me honest.

I don’t need my life to be romanticized.

I don’t need to be called strong for waking up.

I don’t need to pretend that breathing automatically equals fulfillment.

I need space to say this out loud:

Being alive isn’t the same as living.

And both can be true at the same time.

Some days, being alive is all I have.

Other days, I catch glimpses of living again—in laughter, in connection, in moments that don’t revolve around my body failing me.

I hold onto those days carefully.

Not because they fix everything.

But because they remind me that living is still possible, even if it looks nothing like it used to.

And if you’re here—still breathing, still fighting, still stuck in that gray space where survival is not the victory parade everyone promised—you’re not broken for feeling this way.

You’re just honest about the difference.

A note from me

If this hit, you’re not alone. There’s more here—stories about the parts people don’t warn you about, the long middle, the waiting, the quiet grief, and the small reasons we keep going anyway.

You can explore the rest of Mojo & The Mess, or subscribe if you want these words to find you when new ones come. No pressure. Just a place to land when being alive feels heavier than living.

Stay messy.

—Izzy 🖤