Sad Janet: A Novel

by Lucie Britsch

Our era will be known as the Greater Depression.

I work at a dog shelter, so I know a thing or two about sadness. It’s like the exact opposite of Disney World.

If I’d ever read that going jogging was a perfect occasion to run away from home, I might have given it a try.

My childhood was just waiting outside closed doors for my mother, wondering what I did wrong.

One thing I like about working at the shelter is that it never requires me to be happy. I don’t like being told how to feel. It’s the exact opposite of working at the Disney Store.

You might have a wife now, but your sneakers are still shit. He cared about stuff like that, so it hurt. My mother said, Don’t listen to your sister, your sneakers are very nice, dear. His wife just stood there like, What the fuck sort of family is this?

HAHAHA

Life is all about how you fill the holes. I am all hole, most of the time, a cave of a person.

People see the shelter in two ways: as a second chance for dogs to find a home and love, or as a prison where unwanted dogs go to die.

I call my dad. Which scares him to death, I’m sure, because daughters don’t call their dads up out of the blue unless they’re dying or pregnant or—worse—need money.

all. It’s not their fault, it’s just who I am. It wasn’t their fault, it was never that bad living in their house, but live in someone else’s domain for too long, and you’re bound to suffocate eventually. I wasn’t the daughter they wanted, in the same way they weren’t the people they thought they’d turn out to be.

He’ll like it as much as he ever likes a sweater, which is not that much. He doesn’t want gifts. He wants a different family,

Love is like gluten, I should have told the doctor. I can’t process it properly.

Behind every door, I hear versions of Christmas happening. Some of them are silent apartments. Empty rooms. People gone for the holidays, off to be other versions of themselves for other people. This is what life is about.

Sometimes temporary is good. I was stepping outside myself, outside my sadness, into a room of other people and their sadnesses, forgetting my brain, breathing different air. One with less dog stink. Less Janet stink.

I feel desperately sad and weird that she only lives in my phone now, and heart.

The dog just looks at me like, Humans are a fucking mess.

I try one on over my jeans and sweater, but I don’t look in the mirror. This isn’t about how I look, never was. The world would be a better place without mirrors.