Let the Story Rise
Some truths don’t break you.
They meet you—right where you’ve been hiding from yourself.
This wasn’t just a quote.
It was a mirror.
“Not just the moment love failed you, but the moment you stopped failing yourself.”
— Saira Anwar
Everything in me went still.
Not shattered. Not healed.
Just quiet enough to feel what I’d buried beneath survival.
The stories we carry…
they don’t always scream.
Sometimes they whisper.
Until one day—they rise.
This is one of mine.
And maybe, in some way, it’s one of yours too.
That quote found me on a day I now call the unraveling.
It didn’t bring clarity. It brought truth.
Not the kind softened by timing or insight.
The kind that strips away the illusion of control
and holds a mirror to everything you’ve been avoiding.
The kind you can’t unsee.
Sometimes, everything just... stops—
the noise, the roles, the pretending—
and suddenly, you’re face-to-face with what’s real.
My marriage was fracturing in slow, quiet ways.
My son was in the throes of addiction.
And I was holding everyone else together—
while unraveling on the inside.
Then life answered.
Not with ease—but with truth I could no longer ignore.
That truth came in the form of a diagnosis:
Squamous cell carcinoma.
A serious form of skin cancer.
On my lips.
The place tied to my voice. My truth. My expression.
It felt poetic—in the most painful way.
I underwent Mohs surgery, over 20 times—
layer by layer—until half of my bottom lip was gone.
Raw.
Stitched.
Altered—forever.
In my mind, it plays like a flashback—
not one moment,
but a loop.
A quiet kind of trauma that doesn’t scream,
just stays.
Until it blurs into something you carry
without even realizing it.
Because it wasn’t just my lip that was altered.
It was the weight behind it—
the silence, the swallowing, the survival.
That’s what stayed with me most—
not just the scars,
but what they stood for:
the words I never said,
the needs I tucked away,
the truths I buried to keep the peace.
But maybe, for the first time—
honest.
My body had been whispering for years.
That day—it screamed.
And I asked: How did I get here?
I protect my skin.
I’ve been mindful. I really have.
But still… it found me.
Deep down, I already knew—not in words,
but in the way I kept pressing things down,
holding my breath,
doing everything I could to keep from coming undone.
Maybe that’s what happens when you silence yourself long enough—
your body eventually speaks.
And the truth is—I felt it
before I could name it.
That tightening inside.
Like something in me had been bracing for years.
Somewhere in that unraveling, I made a promise.
Not out loud—just within.
A vow, whispered in the dark:
To stop shrinking for comfort.
To stop reaching for what won’t reach back.
To stop abandoning myself just to be chosen.
Because love without truth isn’t love.
And I’m no longer willing to disappear just to be loved.
And truth—once named—starts to reshape everything.
That decision didn’t arrive loud or proud.
It crept in—quietly, painfully, over time.
It was slow. It was sacred. It was mine.
Truth doesn’t always roar.
Sometimes it finds us in the rupture—
in the reflection—
in the quiet, terrifying act of choosing ourselves.
But what does that actually mean—choosing yourself?
It’s not always bold.
It’s not always clear.
Sometimes, it’s just staying.
With the ache.
With the truth.
With yourself.
Long enough to hear what you’ve spent years silencing.
Long enough to realize—it’s not new.
It’s been there all along.
Even before the cancer, that question lived in me—
a quiet ache I couldn’t name.
Like something was missing.
Like I was missing.
In the midst of that unraveling, I turned to Johnny,
who was in the early stretch of his recovery.
I knew he’d understand.
We were both holding things
we could no longer carry in silence.
That’s when I started RegiDuke.
Not just a platform—
a lifeline.
A way to give shape to all I had carried.
And gently, I reminded my son of the power in our stories.
Not to fix.
But to remember we weren’t alone.
Two different battles.
The same silent war.
And we were done pretending it hadn’t shaped us.
It was time to bring the darkness into the light.
It was time to heal.
But healing has a way of asking for more—
More honesty.
More release.
More truth than you thought you were ready to tell.
And then came a deeper question:
Is this the life you want?
Not the one you were taught to keep.
Not the one built around keeping the peace.
Your life.
That question grew louder this past year.
Through grief.
Through betrayal.
Through the silence of people I thought would stay.
It echoed in the ache of being turned away.
In the moment you realize—
not everyone you trust is truly holding you.
And still—it brought me here.
To this moment.
To this truth.
Back to me.
Getting here didn’t mean I had it all figured out.
It just meant I was finally ready to tell the truth—
first to myself,
and then to the world around me.
And that truth? It keeps evolving.
Sometimes, choosing myself means letting go of the need to be understood.
Sometimes, it’s naming a boundary I once feared would make me unlovable.
Sometimes, it’s simply getting still enough to hear what I truly need.
For me, the shift began with one quiet question:
If I stopped abandoning myself—what would that look like?
That question didn’t offer answers.
It gave me something better:
permission to begin again—with truth, not survival.
But a beginning like that isn’t a finish line.
It’s the start of a thousand tiny reckonings—
moments where the old ache still reaches for something familiar.
And even with all that awareness—
I still found myself reaching.
Not because I hadn’t healed,
but because some part of me still longed to be chosen.
I told myself I had stopped chasing love.
And maybe, I had.
But part of me still waited.
Still wanted.
Still reached—quietly—
hoping this time, it would be different.
That ache doesn’t vanish just because you name it.
But something shifts
when you stop running from it
and meet yourself there instead.
And if I’m honest—
I still reach.
Especially for the one I once gave everything to.
That’s the ache I sit with now:
the part of me still running toward a closed door,
hoping it might open—if I just love hard enough.
I’m learning the shift isn’t about never reaching again.
It’s about noticing when I do—
and choosing myself anyway.
Because that’s the moment everything changes.
This is why I write.
Because words—when spoken, written, or simply felt—
have the power to bring us back to life.
They are mirrors.
They are medicine.
Sometimes the most sacred reclamation happens in the softest spaces—
in breath,
in ink,
in being witnessed.
Or in stumbling across a story that reminds you:
You don’t have to suffer to be worthy.
You don’t have to disappear to be loved.
That’s the shift I trust now.
I’ve stopped begging for love I had to chase.
I’ve started choosing the kind that begins within.
Now—I speak what hurts before I swallow it.
I rest when I would’ve pushed through.
I write the way I used to dream of speaking—
freely, fiercely, mine.
I wear my scars without shame.
I use my voice without apology.
And for the first time—
I’m no longer disappearing.
I am here.
Fully.
Finally.
Me.
With love,
~ Regina
You don’t have to roar.
You don’t have to rush.
Let it rise slowly.
Like breath returning.
Like truth finding its way back home.
To you.
In you.
Now.
If this letter speaks to something in you, I’ve gathered reflections, tools, and rare cancer resources at regiduke.com — not as answers, but as reminders:
You’re not alone.