Nov
10
Billy the kitten is now the size of a regular smallish-sized cat but he has plenty of embiggening to do, he’ll be five months old at the end of November and apparently Maine Coons keep on growing for 3-5 years! At some point he’ll be YOOGE and it will be hard to remember how relatively little he was, I have really enjoyed his young-boi energy but I also look forward to a slightly more mellow stage.
He is extremely cuddly and affectionate when he’s a bit sleepy and that is a great delight, especially in bed when he curls up next to me and his purr is a busy little motor that lulls us both. He has a little routine where he slithers all around me before getting settled, he lays his long warm belly across my face and I can feel his contended buzzing, he swirls himself into a roll in the crook of my arm or right on top of my chest, I’m not a praying person but Billy’s nighttime ministrations has prompted me to think of that verse: he maketh me lie down in green pastures.
He is also a straight-up maniac a fair amount of the time, poking into absolutely everything I might be doing and running around in wild spurts, accompanied by a blurry sort of noise — ERRRT — that I now associate with Unhinged Cat Zoomies. He is both hilarious and deeply annoying when he’s in this mode, stopping briefly to arch his back and wilden his fur so he looks electrified before tear-assing around and jumping into the sink or batting reading glasses from my face.
We have a little game that makes me think of Cato in the old Pink Panther movies, where I peek my head around a wall and he instantly drops into stalk mode and wiggle-butts his way into an attack. He can honestly be quite startling with his little jumpscares, paws up and eyes looking just bonkers, but his claws are always sheathed. He loves to bite me with gentle teeth. He is a stealthy and constant assassin, but wants me to live another day.
His worst habit is doing his level best to shoot out any door I might be opening and it’s quite hard to stop him, he is absurdly fast and can liquify into various surprising forms that are difficult to get a grip on. Thankfully he doesn’t go far if he gets outside, but it’s a whole damn thing. When I’m leaving in the car I often toss him gently and go out at a bolt so I can get the door shut before he fully regroups, or if I’m coming in I’ll just let him into the garage where he can prowl around for a while before remembering that the food and most of the entertainment is inside.
I have mostly gotten him to stay off unwanted areas (the TV stand, the kitchen table and counters) by use of air duster cans, which are placed on several surfaces around the house for quick deployment. I tried tin foil and spiky mats, both of which he walked on no problem, but he haaaates the little PSHT!! of air so that has worked pretty well. It adds to the overall chaotic decor theme of cat toys everywhere (like with growing babies, you keep buying more shit in hopes of longer stretches of non-destructive independent play) plus what appears to be an inhalant abuse problem, but I traded in my cute-things-everywhere house pursuit the day I brought him home and I’m okay with that.
He tolerates a harness and leash just fine and we have explored the backyard together, I kind of think he’d do okay just walking down the street but there are so many dogs going by that seems like too much of a gamble. He’s the only cat I’ve ever owned that I could imagine being in one of those pet backpacks with the clear bubble, I swear he’d love that. (I think that’s a crazy cat lady bridge too far for me, though, I already have the giant carpet-covered tree in my living room).
When I bury my head in his fur, he smells like sunshine. He smells like a warm place full of books. It has been so long since I have smelled a baby’s head (sob sob) but I think it’s the same type of smell, maybe they don’t smell the exact same but it is an immensely soothing smell of pure goodness; his fur smells of green pastures.
The right cat at the right time, I’ve told people. Gosh, it is true. He came into my life when I most needed him, he adds so much to my every day. I miss my old pets so much, and/but I’m so grateful for him. He is the best addition to my all-different life, a growing furry talisman, my best Billy boy.
Nov
2
One thing that extra sucks about divorce is how you take a big hit social status wise, in the sense that a married woman with kids is generally perceived to have value regardless of her career/lifestyle status and a divorced woman, well, not so much. I mean, you can tell me otherwise, and I’m sure not EVERYONE thinks that way, but that’s how I observe things here in patriarchyland.
Also, there is the immediate reaction when hearing that I’m divorced, a knee-jerk sort of “ooh, I’m sorry” pity. I feel pity for my own self at times and don’t see this as a bad or wrong thing to say, but how good does pity feel, broooo not good at ALL. And when someone, usually a person who has also experienced divorce, has the more accurate take of “I’m sorry, and also congratulations!!” that does feel better but, you know – it is inherently vulnerable to share something that triggers an acknowledgement of there being complex emotions at hand. Telling someone that you’re recently divorced is sort of like peeling off your clothes: here are my saggy nudie-patootie parts laid bare before you, sorry about that I do realize we literally just met!!
I also don’t know what to say when people then ask what I do. They mean what job do I have, which is a natural human way to begin to categorize someone, like okay she’s not married but she IS a nurse/teacher/barista/rocket scientist, that’s how she fits into the world. But I don’t really have much of a job any more. I was a marketing professional many years ago and then I was a busy freelance writer and also a full time at-home parent and then I was a less busy freelance writer and eventually a hardly-ever-getting-a-gig writer and now my kids are older and I’m more of a personal writer and someone who pursues things like volunteering and horse riding and going for long walks and spending time with my boys whenever possible. I hope that I can continue to find rewarding ways to experience life and maybe I will be lucky enough to have a third career of sorts but the reality is I’m 51, have not been in any kind of traditional work force in years, and much of my freelance industry has dried up thanks to chatbots that are admittedly very useful and also 1) are probably the final death knell for the remaining good parts of the internet and also society at large and 2) can turbo-spooge out pretty much any kind or amount of good-enough copy for zero marketing budget dollars.
This all felt less discomforting to disclose when I was part of a marriage that had evolved to a traditional type of structure but now it’s like: what do I do? Well right now I am mostly just trying to survive and maybe even thrive, is that enough? I’m not sure it does seem like enough, but maybe that’s just the part of me that is ever vigilant for proof that I Am Not Worthy.
I have to choose to believe it is enough, though. I have to believe that a sense of value and belonging comes from within and not something printed on a business card or the number of dollars in my checking account or my status as Ms vs Mrs. or the look of approval on someone else’s face.
I remember reading something somewhere that all of life is the universe’s way of experiencing itself – everything good, everything bad, everything everywhere. I found that soothing, the notion that everything intrinsically has a purpose. Not really in the god moves in mysterious ways sense but just that there is a quiet reason for it all, even horrible inexplicable things. Even dull boring things. Even divorced ladies who live small-impact lives that nevertheless include many moments of love and appreciation and beauty and wonder.
Anyway, I am rambling but 1) this is a BLAWG that’s what it’s FOR and 2) these are just things that are coming up for me in the great excavation of a massive life change. I am not who I was even a few months ago, nearly every single thing about my life has taken a big turn, and I’m figuring it out as I go. In that way — same as it ever was, really.
Who am I, what do I do? Well, I am both not easily defined with small talk and yet all too easily defined, in terms of my current stage of life and the aspects of of it that are a little/a lot on the yikes side, and that makes me feel awkward but/and that’s part of who I always have been, some things never change. Here I am, my tender uncertain underbelly exposed, and maybe that actually makes true connections easier to develop because I will say I have experienced that lately too.
Every day I feel like I am cycling through every possible feeling, from sorrow to anger to joy to peace to hope. That’s what is happening right now, who I am and what I am doing is just that, living through it all. It’s all okay, and it won’t always be like this, and that’s okay too. I lost some armor, I’m gaining new strength. It is both painful and beautiful to be forced from the cocoon.
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