What cats & heartbreak have taught me so far

This is a story about a girl and a cat. (and some other things…)

I wrote a post about Kitler last August (and holy shit is it more apropos than I remembered…seriously, go read it. It’s short). Kitler is the stray cat I started feeding last year, and he’s stayed in my life, off and on, since then. Every time I think he might be gone for good, there he is when I open the door. As if nothing has changed.

And I feed him, just the same.

In that post last year, I used his lack of trust and my unreciprocated affection as a metaphor for my love life. I give and give and give (cat food), and though he’s slowly warmed up to me, he still won’t let himself fully connect (by receiving kitty snuggles).

That sounds about right.

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Tonight as I was leaving my house to walk to the park — the one safe place I could think of to clear my head — there he was on the porch. After another long absence and presumed tragic ending. He looked skinnier than usual but meowed like he was happy to see me. (Allow me to give the cat some emotions. I need him to have emotions right now.) But when I carried the scoop of food outside, he hissed at me. (This is not typical Kitler behavior anymore.) On closer inspection, I noticed he looked a little dirty, and he was walking with a little limp. Somebody hurt Kitler.

This was too much, universe. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

…Because I’m helpless. The little guy won’t let me touch him when he’s well, so there’s no way I can manage to take him to the vet. He’s not even technically my cat… so I just have to stand there and watch him be hurt.

…And also because that’s how it goes sometimes. People you love get hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it. (Sometimes the “people you love” is you.)

But I’m letting this moment with Kitler teach me an important lesson. I think he’s been hurt by a lot of people in his rough little kitty life. After a whole year he trusts me — but not much. Not enough to let me close.

I see how life can get that way. (For people. I do still relate to people, cat lady conspiracy theorists.)

You trust and you love, and then you get burned sometimes. (This might even happen three birthdays in a row, for example.) After that kind of hope and heartbreak, you might want to completely self-protect. Close off. Shun affection. Put up walls. Harden your heart and never believe there’s someone who could truly care for you again.

(Right?)

But I’m not going to let myself believe that. Whether or not I ever get my own Nora Ephron ending (speaking of sad news this week, you guys…), I know that I deserve to be cared for.

I may be the sort of cat who’s a little roughed up in places, who’s not quite as trusting as she used to be. And sometimes I hiss at life — even at the people I love. But I’m not ready to close myself off. Not yet.

I know I can still care for Kitler even though I can’t fix him. And I certainly don’t have to end up like him.

Besides, I don’t think they make you change your status from “and ready to mingle” to “and ready to die alone” until at least birthday #30. (And it’s longer than that, I’ve heard, in cat-years.)

TILT1

Longtime readers of the blog may recall two things:

1) Long ago, I used to write more. Thanks for reminding me.

2) Longer ago I used to do this weekly post called “Things I Love Thursday”… a quick list of non sequitur happies that happened to cross my mind that day.

Today I remembered I liked this idea. So here we go. TILT blast from the past. No repeats. Just rhymes.

1) @TheSchoolofLife tweeted an intereting quote today, as they are wont to do. This crunchy thought from Mark Twain earned itself an RT:

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

Mark Twain, you dog you. Genius. And I’m sure he just wrote that on a napkin once or something.

2) Happiness is watching my (indoor) cat enjoying her first bites of indoor-cat grass. (Yes, this is a thing, non-cat-people. One can buy special Chia-like items for one’s non-Chia Pet pet, so that one’s pet can get her munchy greens on and — a girl can dream — leave fewer surprise hairballs around the home. Even if the science doesn’t work out, her pure joy at discovering she’s allowed to chew this houseplant is worth the $5.99 or whatever Target took me for. So much purring.

(Over grass, people. Zen moments brought to you by Jenksie.)

3) Jon Stewart.
I love this man. I say it a lot. But any time I’ve missed a few days of Daily Show, I always feel this happy tingle when we reunite anew. That show is food for the brain. (It’s a bit of tasty grass for my mind after it’s been cooped up indoors for too long…).

It’s nice to think. It’s nice to laugh. It’s nice to remember there are people on My Team out there…

4) Speaking of that. The other day in traffic I noticed a new take on an old classic. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Calvin-peeing-on-something car decal. Been replaced by family stick figures and dedications to dead loved ones, I suppose. But this one, a truck I was following on Kearney, was no ordinary Calvin.

This one had Obama’s face on Calvin’s body, and it was peeing on the word “Republicans.” Oh dear lord. But below it was some bumper sticker declaring “voting Republican is like [some cheeky slam that would typically appear on a bumper sticker like this. I'm out of imagination right now, but you get the drift.]” So I realized there was much more to this story than meets the eye.

Not such a bad thing to be reminded. (Even if what meets the eye does include a cowboy hat and car decals that are, let’s face it, still a little wacko…)

5) It’s summertime.
That means life is bringing all the hits: party dishware at Target, summer cocktails at Mudlounge, sunny sunsets for running, gatherings in backyards, sandals… Even though there’s no beach in my immediate future, I’m trying to dig my toes into warm mental sand as often as I can.

Cheers to that. (with a tiny umbrella in it.)

Cat lady.

I’ve been feeding this stray cat for a few months now. I suppose he’s no longer a stray, really, then. He’s sort of my cat. My cat who has never let me touch him, though he’s warmed to me considerably since those first encounters. (Warmed: he’ll stay on the porch when I open the door, vs. bolting across the yard if I look at him. Only recently he’s started to meow at me. Warmed.)

He’s skinny and black & white with the adorably Hitler-like facial coloring around his kitty mouth that has earned him the name of “Kitler.” (Cats-that-look-like-Hitler. It’s a thing.)
As far as I know, he could be a she.
Like I said, we aren’t that close.

I feed him before I leave the house most mornings. He stays just far enough away on the porch to keep me from coming near. As I put down the food and walk away, he cautiously approaches. I say, “it’s okay.” I say, “I’m not going to hurt you.” I say, “I love you, Kitler.”
He cowers. He crouches. If I get too close, he runs. This is our routine.

(Pause.)

Today I saw the movie Beginners at the Moxie, with my friend-turned-boyfriend-turned-ex-boyfriend-turned-friend. (The savvy reader might reply, “which one?” Shut up, savvy reader.)

I used to love romantic comedies. Many a high school hour was passed sighing along to When Harry Met Sally. You’ve Got Mail. Notting Hill.
As I’ve grown up, I’ve developed a taste for what my parents call “Moxie movies”: the melancholy, atypical romances like Eternal Sunshine. Once. Lars & the Real Girl.
But always in a glass-half-full sort of way: where love wins and it “works out”…even for quirky, flawed characters who dress in thrift-wear.

Now I watch a movie like Beginners—with themes of love & loss & death, where the protagonist chronicles past relationships and their expiration dates, with no wide-eyed hope that something better will come along—and I will myself to become more comfortable with the idea that sometimes the girl goes home by herself at the end of the movie.
She says hello to her cat(s) and she faces a Sunday evening alone. Alone, alone. Not without friends, not without family, not without work to do, not without fun to be had. But alone, beneath all of that. With plenty of quirky, flawed storylines behind her, all of them ending the same way.

No “don’t cry, Shopgirl, don’t cry.” No last-minute interrupted wedding. No almost-midnight-on-new-years Bill Crystal speech. You aren’t Meg Ryan. You aren’t Reese Witherspoon. You aren’t (thank god) Katherine Heigl (I mean, who is her agent?!).

You are the girl who feeds the stray cat, with a sigh, “maybe someday you’ll love me.”