Thanks, kitten

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a kitten.

I had my Thanksgiving entry all planned out. It was to be about my love for my new kitten. But alas, we had to give him back to his real owner this afternoon.

I'm shocked at how sad I am. Now that the tears have mostly stopped and only the post-cry headache, puffy eyes, and mascara stains on my sweatshirt remain, I can admit that there is a small part of me that's relieved by the return to low responsibility. But it's a very teeny tiny part. Most of me is wrecked.

I knew this cat for less than a week. When my brother first brought him home on Saturday I was royally pissed--not because I didn't want a cat but because I didn't want a cat like that. Whose was he? Great, now we have to find them. How old is he? Do we want him? Do we have the money? Do we have the time?

By the next morning I was in love. In fucking love with the guy. My stomach was in knots, sort of like the feeling of having an out-of-control crush and not being able to think about anything else. I bought toys, I planned a Christmas stocking, I wanted to get home to him, I worried when I was gone that I hadn't left the door to the bathroom open. It was intense. Mostly I felt vulnerable. Oh shit oh shit, I'm really getting attached to this thing.

Okay, so maybe it sounds a bit psycho to be professing such love for a temporary cat, but don't knock the psychos until you've been in their situation. I'm suddenly reminding myself of a certain type of woman that regularly appears in Lifetime movies: the woman who has been wanting a child for years but can't have one because her annoying husband is infertile (For the record, Erik is neither annoying nor, as far as I know, infertile). Eventually the couple adopts, only to have to give the baby back to the birth mother after a few days. These women are often made out to be these maniacal supermoms who can't accept that the baby isn't theirs, and the junkie biological mothers seem somehow refreshingly fucked up. Now I have a little more sympathy for those crazy mom-for-four-days women in sweater sets. Because my God, I bonded with this kitten and, as we all know, a kitten is a far cry from a baby.

And speaking about psycho women from Lifetime movies, what about the one who loses a baby and is then all weird and touchy when she sees a pregnant woman? The one who wants to snatch every baby she sees? Yeah, I kind of feel for them too. After we gave back the kitten (who, by the way, we did name), I stumbled out of the apartment to stock up on food for Thanksgiving. On my way out, I saw a girl come into the building with her cat. I stopped in my tracks and gazed at her cat, which I swear at first looked exactly like the one we gave back. In explanation of my stare, I told the girl my story--or I babbled something about Kitten! Found! Lost! Sad!. She and her cat quickly ran away from me.

So, here I am, crazy cat lady without a cat but with a lot of knowledge. I now know that I'm good at handling a dancing cat toy. I know that I like the feeling of a kitten walking on my face. I know that cat poop, while really stinky was nothing I couldn't handle. And I know that making a fifteen to eighteen year commitment with Erik doesn't give me any pause.

This doesn't mean we're going to jump into buying another cat. We're going to lick our wounds, spend some time with each other (we've had guests a lot), and re-visit the question soon. Armed with new information and sweet memories.

Thanks, kitten.