Mojo and the Mess

Nobody talks about the anger because anger is the emotion that ruins the version of sickness people are most comfortable with.

People know how to sit beside sadness. They know what to say when you’re scared. They can work with tears and bad news and vulnerability because those things still feel soft somehow. They still leave room for people to comfort you. But anger changes the atmosphere. It makes people tense up. It makes them unsure what version of you they’re about to get. So most sick people learn pretty quickly that anger is something you’re supposed to swallow before it reaches anybody else.

I didn’t realize how much anger I was carrying until I started feeling it in places that had nothing to do with cancer itself.

It would happen in completely ordinary moments. Sitting in traffic on the way to an appointment I didn’t want to go to. Watching someone healthy complain about something small while I sat there trying not to think about scan results. Looking at my calendar and realizing every single thing written on it revolved around staying alive instead of actually living. Sometimes it would hit me when I caught my reflection unexpectedly and for half a second forgot this was my body now.

Not because I think healthy people aren’t allowed to complain. Not because I think the world should stop for me. It’s more complicated than that.

It’s the feeling of being stuck in a life that no longer moves naturally. Everything has to be planned around symptoms, energy levels, treatments, side effects, fear. Even good days don’t fully feel like good days anymore because part of your brain is always waiting for the next thing to happen. The next phone call. The next test. The next symptom that suddenly changes everything again.

And after a while, it becomes exhausting trying to act normal through all of it.

I think people imagine anger as something explosive, but most of the time mine isn’t. Most of the time it’s quiet. It looks like becoming irritated too quickly. It looks like not wanting to answer texts. It looks like sitting in a parking lot for an extra ten minutes because I don’t have the energy to walk inside and pretend I’m okay yet. It looks like crying over something small because the actual weight of everything else is too heavy to touch directly.

Sometimes I am angry at my body for becoming something unpredictable and unfamiliar. Sometimes I’m angry at how much of my twenties disappeared into hospitals and medications and waiting rooms. Sometimes I’m angry at how hard it is to explain this kind of life to people who genuinely love me but still do not fully understand it.

And sometimes, if I’m being honest, I’m angry at the pressure to constantly make this experience meaningful.

To turn it into perspective. To turn it into inspiration. To turn it into proof of strength or resilience or bravery.

Sometimes terrible things happen and the only honest feeling left is anger.

There are days I do not feel brave. I feel tired. I feel cheated. I feel frustrated that my life became so medically complicated before I even had the chance to figure out who I was supposed to be outside of all this. I look around at people my age building lives that move forward naturally while mine feels paused and rerouted every few months by another appointment, another treatment, another problem to solve.

And then comes the guilt for feeling that way at all.

Because there is always someone sicker. Someone dying faster. Someone handling things more gracefully. So you start policing your own emotions before anyone else has the chance to. You tell yourself to calm down. To be grateful. To stay positive. You become so focused on protecting everyone else from your anger that you forget you are allowed to have it in the first place.

But illness is not only sadness. It is loss after loss after loss, and loss has always had anger attached to it.

Anger over the body you used to trust. Anger over plans that no longer make sense. Anger over friendships that changed. Anger over how lonely this can feel even when you are surrounded by people who care about you.

Nobody really prepares you for how isolating it feels to carry emotions that make other people uncomfortable.

Especially when you already spend so much energy trying to make your illness easier for everyone else to witness.

I still try hard not to let my anger become who I am. I do not want to be consumed by bitterness. I do not want pain to harden me into someone I no longer recognize. But pretending anger does not exist has never made it disappear either. It just buries it deeper until it starts leaking out in other ways.

So maybe this is part of being honest too.

Admitting that sometimes I am angry.

Angry that this happened. Angry that it keeps happening. Angry that I have had to become this version of myself so young.

Not because I’ve lost hope.

Not because I’ve stopped appreciating the people who love me.

But because there is nothing normal about watching your life change this much and feeling nothing at all.

Thank you for reading.

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