Chill, sit back and relax
It's August 15th, a big day today, my little roommate 🐱 has been with me for 3 years. She was a stray cat who followed me home 3 years ago at this day, since the vets cannot tell her age and birthday, I'm just celebrating her arrival day as her birthday every year.
She's a small British short hair / Scotish-fold-disease cat, her name Lao Shu ( 老鼠 ) literally means "mouse" or "rat" in Chinese because she looked like one when I met her.
Eating something after came into my home
That was a Sunday, I was taking out the trash and she almost scared the shit out of me in the dark stairway because she looked like the hugest rat I've ever seen in my life. But after rubbing her head she just followed me home, and I came up with an crazy idea: "alright, I can have you as my roommate now."
The reason why I thought it's a crazy idea -- even though I always love cats and dogs but never had the chance to own one in my life -- is that I was so afraid of the idea "what if I'm not ready". I was always thinking that "I must have everything perfectly prepared for my pet, including the best house and a huge amount of attention and love", but at the moment I met her I was just a poor young man who just moved into his rental apartment and started his new job not long ago. I was so scared of not being able to take good care of my pet, so I really struggled a lot -- around an hour while she was eating some eggs I just cooked for her -- before I finally made up my mind.
Came back to my home, chilling on my chair
It really was a disaster, I had ZERO experience in dealing with cats, and I didn't even have a litterbox for her that night, so it was an unpleasant Monday-morning nightmare to found that she pooped & peed all over the floor the next morning. When I finally cleaned up all the mess and ready to go to work, she just ran away when I opened the door, I wasn't fast enough to stop her so I just thought: " Well looks like we are not going to get along. "
But during the day I was thinking about her, and I was worrying all the time: "Oh god I shouldn't have ever let her go, what if it starts raining and she gets sick? What if she got hit by a car?......" I couldn't even do any work at all. It was such a torture to wait until five o'clock, I used all my stamina and strength to ride my bike home.
She was waiting for me at my door, finally relief. I asked her in, immediately started to make a temporary litterbox with carton boxes, and went out to get some cat litter for her despite that it was raining heavily out side. We were so happy to have each other that day.
Happy about belly rub
Now that I think about it, this is probably the lesson one I learned from her -- Usually there's no such thing as "I'm 100% sure that I'm ready, now I can start to do something I've ever wanted to do".
But the thing is, we're never 100% well prepared when we start to do something. When we start of doing something for the first time in our lives, we almost always do them in a shitty way -- no matter it's playing a new instrument, playing a new sport, doing a new job, learning a new language or just making a new breakfast dish. Perfectionism is the number one cause of procrastination.
In my case, I wanted to have a furry little friend for my whole life, however I was so concerned about:
- What if that's so time consuming, and I don't get the time to do anything else in my life?
- What if she destroys my furniture?
- What if I'm simply not able to take good care of her and make her sick and miserable?
......
This list could go on for a few pages long, and these concerns didn't came without a reason -- in fact having her is causing me way more troubles than I expected. She has some chronic colitis ( colon inflammation ), maybe due to the parasites she has in her belly since she had been homeless for a long while, and the pain in her belly had been causing her diarrhea and some terrible behavior of pooping on the floor. That's why I had to take her to the vet constantly, and she even had a surgery to remove some junctions between her colon and rectum.
Ultra sonic scans in pet clinic
She also requires A LOT OF attention: Because she's been wandering around as a stray cat for a long time, she loves to hang out in the neighborhood ( patrolling her territory ); she gets upset if she found that I'm not playing with her when I'm not busy. She's always living in the moment, doesn't have to go to work or go to school, living her life in her own pace, I'm jealous of her.
Weird gesture.....
However I never regret adopting her. I never expected her very existence itself would bring me such a great joy in life. She helped me walk out of a long depression of losing my grandfather & huge changes in life, and she also gave me a reason to take on my responsibilities, including working hard, taking time to rest and relax and basically just keeping my life well organized. After all, if I want to take good care of her, I need to take care of myself first.
Hanging around with a leaf on her head
Somehow I have a feeling that maybe it's surprisingly similar to the mentality of parents. Children might be a huge source of chaos and trouble sometimes, but they are probably the most important factor that provides us with motivation to face all the difficulties and challenges in our lives. Life is difficult, one way or another we would need to go through it, and I firmly believe the balance of power and responsibility, if we're willing to carry the responsibility to take care or ourselves, our family and our furry friends, we get to have more power to accept the challenges in life.
Lying in my new appartment
She's the first cat in my life who made my childhood dream come true, maybe she's not perfect, but she's the best cat in the world. She didn't ask any thing in return for teaching me all these important life lessons, but looks like she really loves her new scratch mat, that's a perfect little toy for her as a gift today😸
New scratch mat toy!