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"My Journey Through Life: Young Adulthood" Part 5

Added 2025-04-16 09:28:42 +0000 UTC

Today’s going to be a positive post — otherwise I’ll end up scaring everyone away with all my horror stories 😅

At the time, I barely had any paid shoots, so most of the time I photographed my friends, who helped me bring to life my weird ideas, at least sometimes 😅

And of course, the animals at the shelter. And Mary… our sweet, beloved Mary.

One day, my parents decided to go to Kyiv for some exhibition (I remember thinking, what kind of exhibition would my parents go to in Kyiv? 😂), but I figured — great, they’ll be gone, and I’ll finally have some peace and quiet at home.

A few days later I was talking to my grandma on the phone — my parents were supposed to be returning to Dnipro from Kyiv that day, driving back by car.

And then grandma asks me, “So, did they already bring the little one?”

I was like, “Wait, what little one?”

And she suddenly goes quiet and says, “Oh… I think I wasn’t supposed to say that.” And that’s when I knew something was up. I started calling my mom right away.

Turns out, they weren’t in Kyiv for an exhibition at all. They had gone to pick up a Labrador puppy.

My parents were so afraid to tell me that they made up this whole story, planning to just show up with the puppy afterward.

Of course I got mad — wouldn’t you?

I told my mom on the phone that they had absolutely no conscience. “Your daughter is breaking her back at the shelter, helping animals nobody wants, and you go off and spend a bunch of money to buy a purebred puppy?”

I told her I wasn’t going to take care of that dog — “Do whatever you want,” I said, and hung up.

…But of course, as soon as they brought that little nugget home, I melted. (After all, it’s not the animal’s fault. It’s the people who breed and buy them who are at fault.) So I started photographing Mary. Lots and lots of Mary.

To this day I still scold them for what they did, but they’ve long since realized their mistake. They were just trying to cope with the grief of losing Sabi, and that was how they dealt with it at the time.

In any case, my parents have taken in a bunch of stray cats over the years and always feed the homeless animals around them — so I can’t stay mad at them completely.

It seems like over the past 10 years, Mary has received more love and care than probably any dog in the world 😅 Truly the happiest dog, and it’s been a joy to watch my parents learn from the past and treat Mary nothing like they treated Sabi.

They baby her like she’s royalty, and my dad always calls her “my sister” (yes, I know that’s kind of weird 😂).

And somehow, after Sabi, it became kind of a tradition — every time one of our animals went through a serious surgery or needed some kind of medical care, they ended up moving into my room with their little cage. That’s how I accidentally became the official four-legged nurse of the house 😂

I had to start earning money somehow, so in my 4th year at university, I decided to switch to distance learning and start sewing plush toys..