i love our cats so much it makes me cry
i've wanted to write this for so long. at first, i thought i might want this as a lengthy, no-one-is-reading-this-and-that's-okay instagram caption to combo with contextless pictures of our cats. then i thought it could be a tweet or a thread or something or the other.
it's just that, i really love our cats. and i don't mean it like on a deep or intellectual level. you know that overused gif/clip from despicable me where the little girl was like, it's so fluffy i wanna DIE or something like that? that's it.
our cats are nothing fancy. they showed up as a group one day. really tiny, raggy looking kittens with eyes barely open. an ominous gang of fluff and claws. we let them stay outside our back door, sleeping, playing, keeping shelter from the occasional rain and wind. then we started naming them. we bathed them, and when one got visibly ill, we took him to the vet.
then covid hit, and they officially became indoor cats. never stepped a paw on outdoor concrete or grass ever since, because god forbid the hell we'd raise if anything ever happened to them outside.
my problem, though, is that the cats aren't always a great time.
don't get me wrong, our lives have been irrevocably changed since their arrival, but they're also really... messy and stinky and demanding and, most of the time, just plain bitchy. the amount of scattered litter sand i've had to sweep off our floors, the random puking, the stealing and spilling of our food even though they literally just ate, the way the house smells whenever we're coming home from a day out, and the way a kiss or a hug from us is almost always a great inconvenience for them.
and yet, i would literally kill for our cats. i would lift cars with my bare hands for them, burn down cities, sacrifice the rest of the world if it meant they got to live and eat and sleep safely.
and i tell them this daily, and i think they know and they get it. and they're never going to tell me or show me that they love me back at all.
and that is really so alright with me.
i think something about it makes me feel powerful or smart or sagely, almost. dogs show you they love you, pretty explicit and expressive about it, really. some people "love" their children because they want someone to take care of them when they're old. people "love" a job because it makes them money. the only thing better than telling someone you love them is hearing "i love you too" back.
but i love our cats even though they never tell me they love me too.
even if our cats literally started speaking english and told me they hated me and wanted me to die, i would still love them, intensely.
i love our cats even though they're annoying and never show me they love us or even need us. even when they make a mess, and pee where i really don't want them to, and eat things we tell them are bad for their health. i love our cats even if i never get anything back.
i love our cats despite all that. not because i want to, or i have to, but because i can. and how crazy, how sobering, how grounding, is that? doesn't a love like that just make you want to cry?
if you love a person who clearly doesn't love you back and treats you poorly, it's an unhealthy, maybe abusive, relationship.
but to love your cats without expecting anything, to love them despite it all, to love them just because. how fucking lucky am i, to get to love like this, feel like this?
some mornings, i am on my knees cleaning unrecognizable cat vomit under our dining table, and i am so deeply annoyed because i just wanted to make coffee for me and my girlfriend first. but some other mornings i am doing something similar and i want to cry because i still just fucking love our cats — unrecognizable cat vomit under the dining table and all.