Melina

At 25, Melina is in a season of betting on herself.

A Princeton graduate and former college volleyball player, she now works for a conservation nonprofit in government affairs and institutional fundraising. She’s also looking toward her next chapter, taking intentional steps toward a future that feels aligned with who she is becoming.

But alongside the ordinary uncertainty of being 25, Melina is learning to live with a very specific kind of unknown.

After her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, genetic testing revealed that Melina carries the CHEK2 gene and has an increased risk of developing breast cancer. Suddenly, cancer was no longer something happening to someone else. It became a possibility she would have to learn how to hold.

“The knowledge is both terrifying and a gift.”

Being a previvor, she says, means living with that increased risk while also having access to screening and tools that can potentially help change the outcome. For Melina, the hardest part isn't the screening itself—it’s the awareness that comes with knowing what could happen.

She calls it “future-casting” and “fear-casting”—imagining what might happen and allowing the possibility of it to pull her away from the life happening now.

“Not all time is guaranteed, and pursuing your dreams doesn’t have to wait.”

Her sister’s diagnosis came during an already difficult period for their family, following her father’s open-heart surgery. Watching someone she loves face cancer made Melina reconsider the way she was living her own life. During her sister’s treatment, she was also wrestling with her own dissatisfaction and feeling an increasing pressure to rush toward the next chapter—to get somewhere “better.”

Instead, she’s learning to appreciate where she is.

The family trips. The holidays. The long conversations. The simple days that once might have felt ordinary.

For Melina, the comeback is less about getting somewhere else—and more about being fully present for the life she’s already building.