The stories behind Lacuna Loft are the most important part of the organization. These stories are courageous and powerful beyond measure. This is a piece of Amy’s Story…
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer on February 4, 2013, I was six months into a new job and in the middle of an antagonistic divorce from my now ex-wife. I had my daughter with me six nights a week and was trying to find my “new normal.” My grandmother, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer more than thirty years earlier, died the day I heard the words, “You have cancer.”
The next two years were a blur: surgery after surgery, chemo, radiation, herceptin, tamoxifen, lupron, exemestane. Somewhere in there, I got divorced and changed jobs again. One day I looked around and realized I couldn’t recognize my life anymore. I had also lost myself, and I didn’t know how to find other young people like me who had had the rug pulled out from under them with so much more living to do.
Then I found Unspoken Ink. The first time I saw Mallory and Jen in small boxes on my computer (we were using google hangout), in the spring of 2016, I wasn’t quite sure how an online real-time writing group would work for me; I was someone who liked to curl up with an unlined journal to write, and I rarely shared my work without revising it multiple times. Yet every Wednesday night I looked forward to sitting down in front of my computer with a journal, a pen, and a cup of tea (or sometimes a glass of wine, if I’d had that kind of day).
Through Unspoken Ink, Lacuna Loft helped me find quiet spaces in which to make sense of my experiences, and community in which to share them. I loved hearing other peoples’ stories, too, whether through poetry or haiku or song. I became a writer again, and a listener and a friend.
I have participated in two sessions of Unspoken Ink, and I was lucky enough to meet Mallory in person at the Young Survival Coalition Conference in Oakland last year. She is an amazing resource, and the fact that she works so hard to make it possible for people like me to participate in programs that help us to reclaim our lives, blows me away. I am grateful to Lacuna Loft, and I can’t wait to apply for the next session of Unspoken Ink!
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What to do next? Stay tuned for more happening this week. You’ll hear some powerful stories from our community as well as some exciting announcements! Pledge Drive week has a lot left in store for you!
