Life has a way of giving us pens we didn’t ask for. And apparently, mine decided to write a chapter I never planned for: breast cancer.
Cue the dramatic pause.
Cue the deep breath.
Cue the moments where I questioned every plan, every expectation, every reflection of myself in the mirror.
Life doesn’t prepare you for this.
It doesn’t feel assigned to women like me. Young, radiant, still becoming.
There’s no outfit.
No orientation.
No syllabus for Breast Cancer 101.
Before I could process the weight of it, I processed the optics.
Not surgery.
Not chemo.
Not even the invasion of my body.
Just the audacity of it all.
Cancer is deeply, offensively unsexy.
This will absolutely hurt my brand.
That’s how I survived the first wave…by laughing before grief could speak.
I make fun of the day I was late headed to my oncologist appointment and I got pulled over and when the cop walked to my door I broke down crying telling him I was late, had cancer (he didn’t ask for all that), and I accidentally handed him my health insurance card instead of my ID because I was so out of it.
He walked away, came back, let me off with a warning, and said, “Good luck with everything.” Meanwhile, I sat in my car, boo-hoo crying, barely able to speak. I guess that’s a way to get out of a ticket.
I laugh at how, a month before my diagnosis, I was celebrating some new “curves” I thought were mine, blissfully ignorant that a tumor was tap dancing in my chest.
But here’s the thing: even in the chaos, there’s clarity. Even in fear, there’s a weird kind of beauty I’ve come to discover. It’s one that I’ve learned that my body isn’t betraying me. It’s communicating, loudly and sometimes dramatically, but always honestly. And I’m learning to listen.
There are moments of strength and moments of fear. Days where I feel powerful, radiant, and soft all at once. Days where I want to hide under the covers and sink into the couch.
Both can coexist.
Both are valid.
Both are me.
I am not required to choose between courage and fear, faith and frustration, hope and grief. I get to hold all of it.
So what is cancer…really?
It is stupid.
Absurdly, beautifully stupid.
It is grief and gratitude at the same table.
Faith without certainty.
Trusting presence over control.
Shutting up.
It’s like that teacher with bad breath. Irritating, intimidating, secretly brilliant…so you just kind of…take it.
I’m sharing this because stories make space. Silence isolates. Honesty — even messy, deeply personal honesty, can be beautiful. I want to invite you to the in between, where God speaks and moves, because I don’t know what’s next.
I wish I did, and maybe that’s the point.
And maybe, just maybe, a glimpse into this piece of my life can show you how divinely guided this pen is.
Still becoming. Still choosing to show up and run.
That, too, is part of the answer.
