Did she say the right thing? Did she document it correctly? Did she forget something? Is she doing enough for the dogs? Is her apartment clean enough? Can she handle four classes? What if her ADHD makes her fuck up? Does leadership think she’s incapable? Is she being a good friend? Did she make the right decision? Is she grieving correctly? Is she moving on the right way? Is she successful enough? Is she lovable enough?
Her dogs have watched almost her entire adult life change around them. They don’t know what a divorce is. They don’t know what living in Seattle means. They don’t know why their sister isn’t coming home. But they know the constant through all of it.’
Her.
Her voice. Her smell. Her bed. Her car. Her routines. Her hands. The sound of her coming through the door. The person who has always eventually come back to them.
And maybe that’s why she loves them in a way that losing one hurts in an enormous, almost disorienting way.
Her dogs aren’t adjacent to her life. They’ve been woven into the little family she fought so hard to keep together.
“If I’d been a better dog mom. If I’d made a different decision. Now I have to do everything perfectly for the other dogs. Buy the enrichment toys. Clean the apartment. Take care of everybody. Make sure nothing else goes wrong…”
Because the antihero part matters. She is not telling herself some pretty story where she’s endlessly resilient and never falls apart. Sometimes she is the woman who handles everything. Sometimes she is also the woman sitting in the middle of the mess thinking, “I cannot fucking do this.”
Sometimes she’s both within twenty minutes.
She’s learned that nobody is going to swoop in and fix her life, clean the bathroom, carry the grief, make the decisions, or magically make her feel okay.
What a brutal thing to learn.
In this story, the princess saves herself, and not in the cliche way.
Not because she stopped wanting to be loved. Not because she decided she suddenly didn’t need anyone. Surely not because being alone suddenly became romantic.
Because eventually she realized waiting for rescue was keeping her from living.
The logical, realistic, version of the princess story is so much messier than Disney ever showed. Being absolutely adored by her dogs, extremely realistic princess behavior. She doesn’t always look brave. Sometimes she’s crying. The kingdom inside her apartment can be a disaster, at times. She is not the exception missing someone who was not right for her. Sometimes she’s furious she has to keep being strong. Sometimes “saving herself” is something hugely significant, and sometimes it’s cleaning half the bathroom and taking a bath.
She doesn’t slay the dragon once and live happily ever after.
She learns that she can slay it every time it comes back.
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