27/07/2025
Cancer doesn’t change you. It changes the way people see you, treat you and navigate around you.
You don’t suddenly wake up with a new personality because cells in your body rebelled. You don’t start dreaming different, loving less, or laughing lighter. You’re still you. But the world around you? That’s where the shift hits the fan.
Some people lean in with softness you never knew they had. Silent soldiers who show up without asking, who hold space without needing to fill it. They see your scars and call them sacred. They let you fall apart and don't try to sweep the pieces under spiritual clichés.
And then, there are the others.
The ones who ghost you like you’re contagious. The ones who talk to your diagnosis, not to you. The ones who switch from “let’s catch up” to “let’s pretend you don’t exist” like your presence is an uncomfortable pop quiz they didn’t study for.
Suddenly, you're not invincible Rey anymore, you're a headline with a countdown, a cautionary tale, an awkward silence wrapped in human skin.
Some stare like you’re already gone.
Others avoid eye contact like your pain is a mirror they don’t wanna look into.
You become the conversation killer, the energy drainer, the “I-don’t-know-what-to-say-so-I’ll-say-nothing” person.
But let me say this:
Cancer didn’t take my identity.
People’s reactions tried to.
They projected fear, pity, distance and wrapped it up in politeness.
They disappeared, not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t know how.
And yet, through that reshuffling of souls, I found my tribe.
Those who didn’t flinch at my fatigue.
Who still invited me even when I couldn’t show up.
Who spoke to me, not it.
Cancer’s a filter. A firewall.
It doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who they are.
Some expired. Some inspired.
And here I stand:
Unchanged in soul, upgREYded in clarity.
Still me; just wiser, leaner, realer.
🩺 "Cancer doesn’t define me.
It refines the world around me."
