The unconventional cat lady

Juanita showed up two months ago. Using the expression showed up would be an understatement because what she really did was sneak up on me and, little by little, settled. Friends that have seen the collection (*spam) of photographs that I’ve sent have all told me the same thing: “Keep her, she can be yours!”; “You clearly love her, why don’t you just have her already?”.

I feed her three times a day, every day, I pet her occasionally, I photograph her when I feel like it and I never worry when I don’t see her. We don’t owe each other a thing. I feed her because I want to. She nags me for petting because she wants to (*seduce me so she can guarantee food and shelter). She’s probably still around because it’s convenient for her. I probably still care because it’s not taking that much of my personal time. If I forget her once in a while, or I’m too busy, too tired, or too bothered with my own life, she doesn’t scratch me or stop coming around. If she doesn’t show up the whole day, I don’t have a micro heart attack nor do I tell her [when she returns] that she “should never do that to me again”.

What makes Juanita’s current presence so great is precisely the fact that I don’t and I won’t keep her. I trust and hope that she will come and go as she pleases, for she is not my cat and I am not her owner. It doesn’t make me enjoy her any less than I do and she certainly wouldn’t be a gentler cat if I called her “mine” or smothered her with unwanted hugs or kitty kisses.

What I like about Juanita aren’t her big blue eyes, her white fur, her tiny frame, or the story of the first time that I saw her and nearly pissed myself when I noticed two big eyes staring at me from the outside window. It’s the fact that she acknowledges my presence when she sees me arrive, and is always up for a short sprint challenge. Essentially, it’s the fact that even when I’m not all in (and I’ll never be), she’s still here and her behaviour mimics something that looks a lot like gratitude for something I do that isn’t even that big of a deal.

A week ago, she showed up again but this time, she brought company. A tiny little kitten. Juanita junior is not mine either, and she’ll follow her mother’s fate. When I arrive, I make sure I locate her body so I don’t accidentally step on her and when I leave, I give her a 3-second-long back rub ’cause it’s a cat, and although I consider my love language quite unattached, I’ve got a little weakness for fluffy things.

Friends still ask me why I haven’t adopted them already — if I’m that heartless that I actually “resist the temptation”. To be honest, I’m not tempted to own her. If I were, I think that’d be the moment where it could be official that my caring for her had ceased and mutated into toxicity.

In many ways, I see love as a simple trade that is overcomplicated by co-dependence and unmeasured expectations. And if you ever find me desperately calling Juanita out and wanting to hold her even though she wants peace, then you can call me heartless. Because that’d be living proof of selfishness and entitlement — two traits that I don’t really associated with love.

One day, when I take her to a new home, I won’t listen to Can’t Live (if living is without you) by Mariah Carey as I cook pasta & cheese and season them with my falling tears. I’ll just hope that she always remembers me — if that’s even a thing. And that the next person is able to love her in this simple way too because, after all, that’s how loving should be.

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