The Time I Became A Cat Lady

It happens to all of us at some time or another.

We are single, spend a lot of time alone, and are searching for a new job or we want to make a life change.

It happened to Lorelai Gilmore:

One day, you are trying to get cats to stay still for a picture on your phone and the next they swarm at you and you become this cat lady/whisperer person.

I didn’t intend for this to happen. I did not understand everybody’s obsession with cats. I mean they are cute and everything, but I was not raised around any sort of pet – cats included. Sure you had the friends and the neighbors with them, but never did you really have an interaction.

Until suddenly you do.

And, suddenly, you are this cat person.

THE BEGINNING

I came home from college to find a litter of feral cats hanging out in our neighbor’s and our joint yard. They were kittens at that point + the momma, of course. They were skittish and they didn’t like when humans were around at all.

A COUPLE YEARS LATER

Another litter came around. Also skittish, but not as much as the first. (NOTE: I didn’t come home from college very much so I didn’t have much interaction with them besides pictures.)

That being said after I graduated from college, I came home to find a job and ended up building relationships with six cats. Yes. That’s right. SIX. Cats.

And it wasn’t until I tried to build a relationship did I realize how much I relate to the cats.

No. Seriously.

I was asked in a job interview what my spirit animal was, and I said cat because that’s the only animal I could think of. But then I Googled cats as a spirit animal, and let me tell you, a cat is actually my spirit animal. Independent. Takes A While To Warm Up. Wants Company But Also Wants Alone Time. Curious. Put a description of a cat on a dating profile and you have me.

But it took me months until one of the cats let me pet her. And now 3/6 will let me pet them. And I didn’t even have to feed them to bribe them to let it happen. (DISCLAIMER: I did have to feed them when the neighbors went out of town. And sometimes I feed them anyway.)

The cats, having realized that we are to be trusted, like to act as guard cats, hanging out in our driveway and bushes and on top of the fences. They also try to sneak into the house — in which case my mom has informed us it is our job to get them outside again.

Most recently, they’ve become enamored with sleeping on our back porch rug, right in front of the back door. They don’t move from that spot for much, and when they do, they walk right back after the disruption is over.

But nothing solidified my standing as when you’re at a friend’s house and their cat walks into the room and heads straight to you. (Yes, it happened.)

It’s adorable. And I love the cats.

So I have, in fact, become a cat lady. And I want to adopt them all.