You were supposed to be different. Orange and stripey, for starters; fat and polydactyl. Older, sedate, a mature feline who wouldn’t mind watching murder mysteries on Sunday nights. You had spent your kittenhood and young cathood with a senior who had moved on to a place you couldn’t follow. You would come pre-loved, gently used, ready to curl up and nap, at a companionable but respectful distance.
Everything about you was wrong.
You were black and white. Skinny. Not yet two, aggressively affectionate with dainty paws. I adopted you on a Saturday (code name: CATURDAY), left you at the shelter to be neutered, and, that Monday, succumbed to a terrible bout of stomach flu that left me too weak to lift my head, let alone go to work, let alone pick you up from your surgery. When I did bring you home, I promptly shut your tail in my bedroom door. You promptly shrieked and hid under my dresser. I promptly cried on the phone with my aunt because I felt awful that the first thing you felt in your new home was afraid.
And I cried because the gravity of what I’d just done—taken full responsibility for another living creature—had smacked me upside the head. Your life was in my hands. And you were nothing like I imagined; you weren’t anywhere close to my planned dream cat. After you crept out from beneath my dresser, God, you wanted to rub on me ALL THE TIME. Like ALL. THE. TIME. You would not leave me alone, and only had two settings: sleeping, and PURRING ALL OVER MY FACE. You were the feline version of the world’s neediest boyfriend, and I hadn’t dumped your ass and fled for my life, I had asked you to move in. What had I done, and could it be UNdone? I’d like to think that my CAN’T. DEAL. overreaction wouldn’t have been so violent if I’d been in perfect health, but the facts were these: I hadn’t adopted you lightly, I grew up with cats and thought I knew what it would mean to have one in my immediate space, and still I found myself wondering whether the MSPCA had a return loophole.
Thank you, Gomez, for not leaving me alone. For effectively calling me on my psycho freakout bullshit. For taking a booster dose of post-shelter medication like a total champ several days later, and fixing me with a gaze that clearly said, “Have you ever known a cat who took meds this easily? Right? I’m awesome. Recognize.”
You are awesome, Gomez. You pushed me and I love you all the more because of it (because, let’s face it—if adopting a cat gets me bent out of shape, I might have some control issues I need to address). Now I think it’s strange when other cats don’t purr constantly, or fall asleep on the couch with their heads propped on my arm. Sure, you’ve eaten three separate sets of ear buds (WHYYYYY) and chewed on all my shoelaces and leave litter tracks in the wet bathtub; there’s the occasional very thoughtful hairball left where I can’t help but almost step on it, and you still put your butt on my pillows. But sometimes I wake up and your head is on the pillow. And you never seem to care when I throw you over my shoulder and force you to dance to old records. In fact, I think you like it. (How could you not; Ziggy Stardust is a freaking classic.)
Since the day I brought you home—one year ago this Thursday, January 19—your coat has gotten shinier and fluffier. You’ve gained some weight, the kind that lets me know you’re happy. (Me too.) I haven’t shut your tail in any doors and you haven’t hidden under any furniture. We watch movies together. You keep me company while I read. You fall asleep flat on your back. And you’re just so damned handsome.
And I remember why I chose you, on that fateful CATURDAY, out of the many deserving cats at the (amazing) MSPCA Angell shelter, even though everything about you was wrong. Your crate was up high. You looked me in the eye and then you charged at me, forehead first and you bonked me, forehead to forehead. You kept on bonking me, and purring like it was going out of style, and even though I freaked from the raging torrent of affection when you first moved in, it’s only because, of the two of us, I am the cat. I like my solidarity. I like my space. Now I can’t imagine my space and my life without your furry butt in it, even if it is on my pillows.
Happy first Racculia birthday, cara mia. You were never the cat I thought I wanted. But you were always the cat for me.
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