Mojo and the Mess

With some new faces finding their way to Mojo & The Mess lately, I’ve been thinking about how much this little corner of my life has grown, and how difficult it can be to explain something so personal in just one conversation.

When you live with cancer, your medical history tends to take up quite a bit of space. There are diagnoses, treatments, complications, and experiences that sound almost unbelievable until you’ve lived through them. I’ve never been particularly private about those things in my writing, mostly because I know how comforting it can be to find someone who understands the parts nobody warned you about.

But there’s a lot more to Mojo & The Mess than my medical history, and I thought this might be a good opportunity to share a little more about how it all came together.

Writing began as a coping mechanism for me. It wasn’t born out of a lack of support or because the people around me didn’t know how to respond to my illness. Sometimes, when I received particularly difficult news, I’d write letters to the people I loved because it was easier to organize my thoughts on paper than to explain everything out loud. It gave me a chance to process what I was hearing before trying to help everyone else understand it. Those letters were never about blaming anyone for their reactions. We were all learning how to navigate something none of us had asked for.

Eventually, writing became something I needed for myself, and somewhere along the way, Mojo & The Mess was born.

The writing, the blog, the website, all of that is my baby. I learned through trial and error, spent countless hours figuring things out, and kept writing because I loved it and because it helped me. I’m still learning, still making mistakes, and still occasionally convinced that technology exists solely to test my patience.

And while I built that part of Mojo & The Mess myself, I certainly haven’t done everything that’s grown from it alone.

I met my husband at his gym, and our relationship developed naturally from there. I can honestly say he’s my best friend and has been since day one. When cancer became part of our lives, he helped me navigate the changes that came with it. Working out looked different. Everyday routines became more complicated. Chemotherapy and radiation changed what I could physically manage, sometimes from one day to the next.

I am, and forever will be, grateful for his support. Having someone beside me through those changes has allowed me to continue putting energy into my writing, even during some pretty difficult periods. He’s supported my ideas, encouraged me to keep going, and helped make it possible for something I started as a personal outlet to grow into something wonderful.

And then there are my friends and family, who have apparently accepted that knowing me means occasionally being volunteered for things they haven’t heard about yet.

I cannot count how many times I’ve tagged someone or sent a message saying, “We’re doing a fundraiser,” or “I have an idea for an event,” and they’ve jumped right in. No elaborate pitch, no convincing required. Just people showing up because they care, and because that’s what the people in my life have always done.

The Village, our other events, fundraisers, and now the Mojo and the Mess Foundation have all come together with that kind of support. My writing created connections I never anticipated, and those connections brought people into my life who were willing to help turn ideas into actual projects. I may be the person who comes up with some of the ideas, but there are a whole lot of hands involved in making them happen.

I also wanted to share a little context about my cancer history, because it can be complicated to explain. My breast cancer was discovered after my endometrial cancer, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily overlooked or missed. There are hormonal and treatment-related factors that can complicate cancer diagnoses, and my own medical circumstances aren’t something that can be neatly summarized in a sentence. Which is why I advocate for all women to be loud, to get checked, to get second opinions.

I’ve never intended for Mojo & The Mess to be a place where individual doctors or medical centers are singled out. The purpose of sharing my experiences has always been much simpler than that. I want other people living with cancer to have somewhere they can go and recognize a little of themselves.

Sometimes that means discussing painful treatments or the things our bodies go through. Other times it’s about relationships, frustration, finding humor in ridiculous situations, or trying to have a fairly ordinary Tuesday while dealing with something that is anything but ordinary.

I’ve always believed that the value in sharing these experiences is in what someone else might take from them. Maybe they discover that a symptom they’ve been embarrassed about isn’t as unusual as they thought. Maybe they find a resource they didn’t know existed. Or maybe they just read something that sounds like a conversation they wish they could have with someone who understands.

As Mojo & The Mess has grown, I’ve realized how much can come from something as simple as putting your thoughts into words. What began as my way of coping has introduced me to wonderful people, led to friendships, and eventually helped create opportunities to support families in more practical ways.

I don’t think every difficult experience needs to be turned into something positive. There are plenty of parts of cancer I would happily give back without a second thought. But I’m grateful that writing has remained something I love, and that the people around me have helped it grow into something that reaches beyond my own experiences.

So, for anyone finding their way here for the first time, that’s a little more of the story. Mojo & The Mess is my writing, my experiences, and a very personal piece of my life. The community, events, and foundation that have grown around it are the result of so many people choosing to be part of it.

And I’m grateful for every one of them.

If you’re new to Mojo & The Mess, you can find my writing, older posts, and a place to subscribe at mojoandthemess.com

You can also visit mojoandthemessfoundation.org to learn about our survival kits, community programs, and plans for supporting more patients and families.

Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or only recently stumbled across my writing, I’m glad you’re here.