I hate cats
from regardless by annie
An email in my inbox. It’s time for Pepper’s shots. Pepper is my cat, and it always warms my heart that vets refer to her like she is a human. She is not. Later I put her in a box, she is screaming, and take her to the worst place on Earth (anywhere that isn’t home). She survives. It is an epic day for the two of us. Good job, Pepper.
A few years ago I got off work before midnight on New Year’s Eve and had nowhere to go but to my silent little apartment. I sat on the stoop in the cold and listened to everyone cheer, pots and pans banging somewhere nearby. I was lonely, but it was okay. I think I cried a little bit, but not in a dramatic way. It was just weird to be alone. It was sad.
I used to spend a ton of time alone. I wasn’t used to it, going in. Over time, years, I figured out how to entertain myself. I could care for myself when I was sick and regulate my emotions. It was incredible. I could get coffee alone and journal, put on a cute outfit to leave the house for an hour. I watched my friends fall in love. I cooked myself little dinners for one and reorganized my living room for the third time. It was just me that I had to figure out.
I spent the first chunk of my twenties needing to be surrounded by people. To be popular and cool. I hid everything about myself from myself and only knew how to be “perfect.” How to be near someone all the time and play nice with everyone.
And then school was over and I was just working my little job and going home and being alone. It was jarring. I began hanging more posters in my little one-bedroom apartment. Going thrifting. Cooking noodles in various forms. Walking the mile to the park and back. I would go whole days without speaking words. I would panic, often and heavily. Who in the fuck am I.
It took a long pandemic to get used to being alone. After a while, it was nice. It was nice to be quiet and to learn all of my weird little quirks that I hadn’t learned about myself yet.
Overthinking? Go for a drive. Angry? Shower. Lonely? Run errands. Overwhelmed? Journal. Self-loathing? Put on the baggiest clothes I have. I don’t know how I didn’t know these things for so long, and then it all clicked at once.
I pushed everything away one last time and moved out of the country. I came home a year later overwhelmed, broke and heartbroken. I was lonely, despite having been completely surrounded by people abroad. I just wanted to be home. I missed my quiet little corner of the world, even if it was sad and quiet sometimes. I had to stop running from my life and myself. I had to commit to a life somewhere.
It was time to sign a lease back home. As if that wasn’t enough, it was time to get a cat (I hate cats).
Pepper picked me out shortly after. The day we met she refused to make eye contact and didn’t really want to be pet. That first day, in the shelter, she just sat next to me, we looked at things together. Sounds good. I signed some papers.
It was so hot in St. Louis that summer, my window air conditioning unit worked overtime. Pepper and I would hang out together in our studio apartment. We figured each other out, day by day.
She likes this litter. She eats at this time. She likes to be pet like this. Sure. She follows me around the house. She’s nearby before I wake up. It’s time to hang out.
I write a lot of sad blogs for this blog. But now I just love Pepper.
We got a bigger apartment. The sunroom became her room, she loved to bake in there that summer. We’d have coffee at the table in the corner and she’s in a sunspot on the carpet next to us, full from breakfast. The kid is running in circles in the other room. It is heaven.
We moved her cat furniture (she is spoiled) out of the sunroom now that it’s cold. She doesn't venture far from the radiators these days unless she finds a pen on the floor she has to kick around for an hour.
She is hangry. She eats breakfast at 9 when we have coffee and dinner at 10 when I’m home from work. We hang out some more.
She is screaming in her little box on our way to the vet. Fuck the vet. Fuck the box. I take her home and she immediately takes a nap on one of her five designated beds. Later she will get on the windowsill and watch the snow. I tell her good job for pooping. I tell her that she is so fast and brave.
I still hate cats.
Sometimes I think my heart will just give out, there’s too much in there and it sucks.
Maybe I will get older and we’ll get a dog or move again or things will change. I am already surrounded by so many and it’s not in a fake way anymore. It’s weird and adult and new and natural and scary.
It’s almost New Year’s Eve now and I keep remembering that night years ago that was just so completely different. Alone and silent and sad. I think about being drunk at some party in super uncomfortable pants, years before even that. Surrounded and alone.
Maybe this New Year’s I will work late again and come home to my full, messy house full of boys and small messes and Pepper will hang out with us at midnight since she’s nocturnal by happenstance and life just keeps getting better. I’ll tell her, Happy New Year.
We love Pepper!