The Dragon at the Sink
Every morning, I fight a dragon.
It doesn’t guard a treasure, or breathe fire, it doesn’t fly or roar or even demand a sword. It just… waits. Coiled in ceramic. Tail curled around the edge of the bathroom sink. Sitting silent, still, and familiar.
The dragon is brushing my teeth.
That’s it. That’s the whole battle. But if you think that makes it small, then you’ve never had to step barefoot into a cold-tiled cave before you’ve even had time to shield your senses. You’ve never faced the full wrath of sunlight at full strength while your body is still unlayering sleep. You’ve never stared down a minty weapon that tastes like metal and punishment, gritty and sharp and full of everything your mouth does not want.
You’ve never had to talk yourself into surviving something everyone else calls basic.
On the surface, it’s hygiene… a routine, asmall task, and a non-event.
But in my world, it’s a gauntlet.
First, there’s the sensory terrain. The chill of the tile. The jarring light. The tightness of the bristles. The loud sound and jarring vibration of my electric toothbrush. The sharp tang of toothpaste that never quite feels like a flavor, just a chemical flavoring of discomfort. My brain registers it all before I even reach for the brush. And sometimes, before I even open my eyes, I’ve already lost the will to go near the dragon.
Some days, I run. And then the like clockwork shame arrives prancing around me like a merry-go-round that doesn’t stop. And no, not the loud kind, not the kind that motivates you to do the work. She’s the quiet kind. She whispers “What’s wrong with you?” Her voice says, Other people do this without thinking. You’re failing at the first thing. The easy thing. If you can’t even do this, what business do you have leading, helping, creating, being… anything?
Her voice is like a sword sharper than the dragon’s teeth. And most of the time, I let it cut me!
What no one tells you is that self-care doesn’t look like a Pinterest checklist for all of us. Sometimes it looks like tactical negotiations with your nervous system. Sometimes it looks like stepping one toe into the lair, wincing, retreating, and trying again and again. Sometimes it looks like brushing your teeth in the dark, with your headphones on, rediculous slippers, with lukewarm water instead of cold. And with a flavor you don’t like but can tolerate for exactly 36 seconds.
It doesn’t sound heroic, but it is. Because survival is quiet. And resilience rarely looks like what we expect.
We tend to think of dragons as big, obvious things like trauma, illness, and tragedy. But for those of us living in bodies and minds wired a little differently, the dragons are everywhere. Small, habitual, mundane acts, each layered in sensory overwhelm, shame, executive dysfunction, and a lifetime of being told that struggling with these things is lazy, weak, or gross.
And yet we face them.
Not always daily. Not always well. But again and again, we return to the lair. We strategize, put on our armor of the mask, and we try. We sometimes win…and even when we lose, we still come back.
So here’s what I’m learning, still.
The dragon doesn’t shrink when I shame myself. It doesn’t get easier when I pretend it’s not hard.
And courage doesn’t come from brute force, because it comes from compassion.
Some mornings, the win is brushing for thirty seconds. Some mornings, it’s rinsing my mouth and saying, That’s enough for today. Some mornings, I stand outside the bathroom door and just breathe. And count that as bravery. Because it is. Because the dragon may look like a toothbrush, but the real fight is invisible. And I am done minimizing the battles I fight just to arrive in the world intact.
If you’ve got dragons too, no matter how small or ridiculous, ones you don’t talk about because they’d sound embarrassing to name..then just know this: You are not alone in your cave. You are not the only one negotiating peace with your own senses. You are not less of an adult, a professional, a leader, or a human because some days your biggest victory is just showing up to try again.
The dragon is real. And you don’t have to slay it every time to be a warrior.