Vachon Imagined

When I first started working with a woman who, at the time, worked for me—adding yet another layer to this story—she was what I affectionately called Ms. Boundaries.

If there were a pageant called Miss Boundaries USA, she would have been crowned immediately. No sash. No dramatic music. No emotional buildup. Just put the crown on her head, let her take a very measured, emotionally regulated stroll across the stage, and wave politely from a safe distance.

No hugging the judges. No spontaneous connection with the audience. Just boundaries. Beautiful, organized, well-lit boundaries.

Honestly, everything this woman said was about boundaries.

“I just need a boundary.”

“That’s my boundary.”

“I’m setting a boundary around that boundary.”

To be fair, she wasn’t wrong. But she was hiding.

That’s what boundaries can do. They begin as protection, become structure, and then—if we’re not careful—become architecture we start living inside. Eventually the structure gets praised so often that we stop remembering we built it for safety, not permanence.

Walls, after all, are excellent at one thing: staying up.

And then there was me.

What some people would call Ms. No Boundaries.

If there were a pageant for me, it wouldn’t even be called Miss No Boundaries USA. It would be something louder, something more uncontained—like Intercontinental Affection Without Warning Championship 2026. There would be no judging panel because I would already be hugging them. There would be no stage because I would have wandered off it to greet the audience directly. There would be no opening speech because I would have already started talking to strangers about very intimate topics in the parking lot on the way in.

I am the person who comes in for a hug without first checking whether the hug has been scheduled, approved, or processed through the appropriate emotional compliance department. I don’t ask if you’re a “hug person.” I just… arrive.

And yes, I’ll probably give you a kiss too, because affection to me is like breathing. If I can’t express it, it doesn’t quietly disappear—it gets locked inside me like a very emotional prisoner shaking the bars of a cell, demanding to be released on parole immediately.

So you really do have to let her out.

Or she will make it everyone’s problem.

So there we were.

Ms. No Boundaries—the woman who believes most topics are appropriate for discussion in most settings, and if they’re not, we can still at least talk about why they’re not.

And Ms. Boundaries—the woman who could probably put a boundary around the sun itself, file the proper paperwork, submit it for review, and ensure the moon understands its distance requirements.

Naturally, we clashed.

We still do, sometimes.

There is something deeply comedic about one person saying, “I need space,” and another person responding by physically closing that space with enthusiasm and affection.

But over time—through patience, misunderstanding, recalibration, and the occasional mutual “okay, let’s try that again”—something softened.

I began to respect her. Not as opposition, but as information. She was showing me where I moved too fast, where I assumed too much, where my affection sometimes skipped consent in favor of sincerity.

And she began, in her own way, to soften too.

Not because boundaries disappeared.

But because they stopped needing to be fortified like national security infrastructure.

What I eventually realized is that she was not my opposite. She was another part of me.

The part that knew how to protect.

And I was another part of her.

The part that forgot protection is also love.

We didn’t arrive at understanding overnight. We arrived there the way most real relationships are built: slowly, inconsistently, with progress, regression, laughter, irritation, and trying again anyway.

Now she still sets boundaries.

And I still sometimes forget to ask before the hug arrives.

And that’s okay.

Today she hugs me affectionately, and I absolutely eat it up.

And even now, on the days when I disagree with her entirely, I still give her that respect.

Not because we are the same.

But because we are human, and we are often found at the very end of our boundaries.