It is a little after 2 am as I write this.
Normal Monday night shift. 11 pm to 7 am
Still 90 degrees out. My body is sticky with sweat.
My mind is not here though, in this little guard shack as a train passes by the window.
No, my attention and heart is back at home
Concentrated entirely on a little under 2 pounds of calico fur.
I’m a cat dad. I’ve been one for just a day. And I love it. I love her.
She was found on Saturday.
My girlfriend runs a group art therapy session for teens on Saturday mornings, but no one showed up that day.
Which enabled her to stand outside the offices and chat with a co-worker.
Which enabled the two of them to hear a faint meowing from the creek across the street.
And there she was. Scared and stuck in a tree. Can’t be much more than 3 or 4 months old.
My girlfriend and her co-worker spent over an hour trying to get the terrified kitten out of the tree.
Several hours and a couple of flea baths later, she was asleep in my arms. Almost instantly at ease in her new home. Where she is being fed and looked after for the first time in who knows how long.
I almost said no.
In fact, I did say no at first.
Not because I didn’t want a cat. I have been talking and thinking about having a feline roommate for probably the last 6 months.
But I was also back and forth, always delaying, never acting on the decision even long after it was decided.
This is not the only time where this has been an issue for me.
I would dare say it is a chief obstacle in my life. I always want to sit back and wait and observe and ruminate, all while life passes me by.
“My boyfriend is a commitment-phobe” my girlfriend explained to her co-worker. “We were friends for years before we started dating and he still seems kind of hesitant, to be honest.”
She said this as a way to explain why it took me a few hours to decide to bring the kitty home.
It’s all true and I hate it but also can’t seem to help it. I am really trying, don’t get me wrong, but there is some deep trauma there that I won’t go into now. Some big fears are at the root of me.
But this time, at least this time, I said yes.
And it does terrify me. I know pets are a normal thing for normal people and most people wouldn’t even think twice about it.
But I’ve got a brain that thinks twice, thinks it over 2,000 times at least.
I broke down weeping here in this little guard shack after I said yes. I couldn’t believe I would just relinquish control like that. I hadn’t considered all the variables, I do not know enough about the future. I have never had a pet on my own before.
But it also seemed to be about more than the cat. I wept for reasons still not entirely known.
I wept, perhaps, because I wish I could live instead of just obsessively thinking about living.
I wept, perhaps, out of grief for all the opportunities (romantic, professional, spiritual, existential) that I have let slip by simply because of indecision and fear.
I want to say that all vanished when I looked into her giant eyes and heard her sweet meows. The anxiety hasn’t vanished at all, but I have noticed something growing alongside it. Maybe something more powerful than it.
I am not sure exactly what that feeling is.
But I feel it most strongly when this tiny beautiful kitten curls up in a ball on my chest. When she purrs as I stroke her neck.
When I think of her alone and lost during the hottest summer on record, with nothing to eat and nowhere to go,
When I think of her now safe and well-fed, being held and loved.
It is a good feeling.
I am so grateful I opened my home and heart to her.
She is doing deep therapy in me.
I have named her Lucia (meaning “light”), Sophia ( “wisdom), Isabella (which I thought meant something like “beauty” but actually means “devotion to God” and I think that fits here as what else demonstrates devotion to God more than caring for all creatures great and small?)
But I call her Lucy for short.
I hope she is okay right now, during her first night at my house without me.
I hope she will be happy with me, that I don’t fuck things up too badly.
Many cultures consider calico cats as bringers of good fortune.
Her loving presence is alone proof of that.
But if I can be greedy enough to hope for more, the good fortune I want is to become more open-armed and big-hearted.
More generous, more welcoming, and more decisive with everything that the universe puts in my path.
Right now my path is Lucy, waiting at home to snuggle.
And that is a wonderful path to be on.
It is more than enough for now.
6:28 a.m. - 2023-07-18
Recent entries:
Those Left Behind. - 2023-09-01
The Sexually Repressed Mr. Darcy - 2023-08-19
Not Much To Say - 2023-08-18
Cabaret - 2023-08-02
I Thought I was Going to Write About My Cat, But Things Took a Turn (trigger warning, it's kind of heavy) - 2023-07-22
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