Vachon Imagined

I want to be pretty. The kind of pretty that isn’t earned, but somehow still inevitable. The kind that is given by a father simply because she is here — not the kind that has to be negotiated for, or rewarded only when she is a good, obedient girl.

The kind of girl who grows into a woman anyway, eventually choosing her own path, steering her own ship — even if that ship sometimes feels like it’s being driven by a drunken, unsupervised, deeply inexperienced sailor. Because, honestly, nothing is quite as in control as I like to pretend it is.

What I want is a kind of love that gives because giving is its nature. Not the kind that fills a room and then quietly hands you a list of conditions. Not the kind that says I love you, therefore you owe me obedience.

That version of love always felt like a chemical reaction gone slightly wrong — acid meeting something it insists on calling base, producing heat and expectation and the assumption that one side should dissolve more gracefully than the other.

And maybe that’s where it gets uncomfortable.

A girl wondering how anyone could feel entitled to her obedience, respect, love, or followership simply because they showed up wrecked on the other side of the equation. An abusive wreck, like a broken end of a chemistry set insisting it still deserves to determine the outcome of the experiment.

The truth is, I can’t control you. I can barely control myself some days.

But then again — no one really says that part out loud.

So instead we go back to talking about love.

Ah yes. Love. That thing everyone demands in theory and negotiates in practice. The thing that is supposed to be mutual, but often arrives already tilted, already assigned roles, already expecting one person to carry more weight while calling it devotion.

And real love is not conditional, or pretending. It is what it is. The most honest, sincere kind — the kind that makes you feel pretty no matter what you’re wearing, no matter how obedient you are pretending to be, no matter how well you are performing the version of yourself you think someone else might stay for.

The kind that doesn’t ask you to shrink, or earn, or audition.

The kind that simply sees you — and doesn’t turn that seeing into a contract.

And if that is what love is supposed to be, then maybe all of this has just been practice at remembering what it feels like to exist without performing.

Without bargaining.

Without trying to become something more acceptable than a person standing here, trying to be pretty.