I don’t remember growing up thinking cancer was something that happened to people like me.
It was always someone older. Someone’s grandma. Someone’s uncle. Something sad, but distant. Something that belonged to a different stage of life.
Now I look around and it feels like everywhere I turn, there’s another young woman saying the same words:
“I was just diagnosed.”
And it’s not rare anymore. It’s not shocking in the same way. It’s becoming… familiar. And that’s the part that feels the most unsettling.
Because it shouldn’t be.
And before anything else, I want to say this clearly- cancer is heartbreaking at any age. There is nothing about it that is easier just because someone is older. The loss, the fear, the disruption… it’s devastating no matter when it shows up in someone’s life.
But it’s hard not to notice that the faces are getting younger.
There are women in their 20s scheduling chemo between work shifts. Women in their 30s figuring out fertility conversations at the same time they’re learning about treatment plans. Women who still feel like they’re just getting started, suddenly being thrown into something that stops everything.
And no one really prepared us for that.
We were told to plan our futures. Build careers. Fall in love. Maybe have kids. Travel. Figure ourselves out.
We weren’t told to prepare for oncologists. For scans. For learning words we never needed before. For sitting in waiting rooms thinking, “How is this my life?”
It’s not just the diagnosis either. It’s what comes after.
It’s trying to explain to your friends why you can’t just “push through.”
It’s watching people your age move forward while you feel stuck in place.
It’s looking in the mirror and not recognizing the version of you staring back.
And then there’s this quiet question that a lot of us carry but don’t always say out loud:
Why is this happening so much now?
There are articles, studies, theories. Environmental factors. Lifestyle changes. Genetics. Things in our food, our air, our stress levels. A lot of “maybes” and “we’re still learning.”
But when you’re the one living it, those answers don’t always bring comfort.
Because knowing why doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening.
What’s changed the most isn’t just the numbers. It’s the visibility.
We’re talking about it more. Sharing it more. Writing about the parts people used to keep quiet. And while that’s powerful, it also means you can’t ignore it anymore.
You see it. You feel it. You realize how many of us are quietly carrying something heavy.
There’s this strange mix of connection and heartbreak in that.
On one hand, you’re not alone.
On the other hand… you wish fewer people understood.
I don’t have a clean answer for why this is happening.
I just know that it is.
And I know there are so many young women out there trying to hold onto pieces of their lives while navigating something they never thought they’d have to face this early.
If that’s you, I see you.
If you’re supporting someone going through it, I see you too.
And if you’re someone who hasn’t been touched by it yet, I hope you never have to understand this from the inside.
But if you do, there are more of us here than you probably realize.
Not because this is normal.
But because it’s becoming something we can’t ignore anymore.
If you’re here, thank you for reading and for being part of Mojo & The Mess. This space exists for the messy, the hard, and the honest parts of life that don’t always get said out loud.
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