Cat Ladies, Vibes, Dreams

I feel the need to stand up for women who love cats. I feel the need to stand up for women who may call themselves Crazy Cat Ladies. Why? When I have no cats of my own, yet play Neko Atsume and fawn over all things cat, online? Because I adore cats. Because I love people who love cats. Because I love people who love cats, and love them even more for sharing their cats or cat love.

What I don’t like–the stigma of these people.

Now this isn’t some call to action blog, because people will feel how they feel. I got that vibe from my guy after our 9th talk about CCLs. I was getting heated, and he’s giving me all these “facts” about how these women go unmarried, how they are unkempt, and a crap-fest of other vibe killers. And he’s saying this all to me, and I’m in my own head like–what cat ladies have you been around? Or, is it the stereotype that unsettles you?

We all know it. We see it on The Simpsons, we have seen it played out online and in real life a thousand times. Is that the collective, though? Is that all cat ladies? is that going to be me, if I have multiple cats? I know cat ladies who have careers but love their cats. I know cat ladies who adore their fur babies, yet still have love lives and keep a clean house. I have seen enough positive examples to know that not all cat ladies are so gone that they can’t get a grip on cleaning or caring for all the cats they own.

Again, I acknowledge that some CCLs are genuinely not right. But that stems from mental illness, or something else. Not just cats. And that’s when you have to separate that toss around attitude of calling everything crazy, because mental illness isn’t a joke. I am guilty of some of the bad behavior, but I am breaking the chains of continuing to use those terms in joke format. Especially as mental illness runs in my family, and especially after the messed up question of whether I am bipolar or not.

I’m eccentric. Leave it at that, and don’t bring it up again.

Anyway.

What is the point in or of killin my cat lady vibe? I want two cats. Just two. I have always wanted a cat, but my dad always said no, or he was unsure. I can’t have one now, because this is not my home I own. I want some when I get my own pet friendly space. That’s part of my “finally on my own” dream. So why kill that vibe? I am wild about cats. I love them. I want one as my independent living pet.

If that love and wildness bothers you, then that’s something you need to work out. My love for cats has been here since childhood. Why should I change that, based on whatever stigmas are in someone else’s head? Is that going to stop me from being loved? Getting married?

Don’t be a vibe killer based on what you think you know. Or based on what you thought you heard, or a brainstorm of mine that could change tomorrow. My dreams are what keep this bleakness train rolling into sunlight and better times. If you want me to get over the negativity and the short measurements, don’t stomp my dreams because you don’t get them or agree with them. I am telling you what they are, not asking you to trim them for me. Maybe I want to share them with you. You don’t have to hold the same obsession, but jeez–support much?

Cats will not stop me from cleaning my house. Or wanting to live life. Or wanting to love someone. Or wanting a life with them. A cat….cats are simply part of my desired life as the adult I want to be. That’s all. Let me dream. Can’t I do that?

2 AM

I don’t even know what to say, if I can say it properly. Or who I am, or who I need to be, to fit in with the rest of the functioning people on this planet. I’ll always say something weird, or stupid, or goofy, or socially awkward or…something. Is this what happens when Pre-k teachers marry engineers? I make that joke often, and wonder why I am here. Sometimes with a smirk, sometimes with tears in my eyes. Who is this ridiculous person, and why can’t she get “it” right? And why can’t she mellow out after hours? Why is she cleaning right now? Why can’t she find her original poetry book? Why does this upset her so much, and why does she want to write more, all of a sudden? Who is she, and why is it always something short of wonderful?

I’m so many things, but mostly hard on myself. I try not to be. I try not to be a lot of things, editing out of concern or hoping it will go un-noticed. Or I have an explanation for it once a layer is questioned, or a….whatever is queried. Always. People sleep at this hour, and I stir. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I rest in the dark.

I don’t want to bring up bad things, or odd things, or things that sound okay to me but not so much to other people. But beneath all of those things are just the drives and goals of a lonely person who has lived a pretty boring and basic life. I’ve learned not to ask for the moon, but have comedy and mirth thinking of what would make me happy, in case I find out I can’t have kids, or I don’t have that best seller, or I don’t get that swanky apartment. Maybe I see modern day examples, and feel like some kind of happiness is possible, if that is okay. Maybe I just want to live a little for my mother, because she did not leave her 30s in one piece, and only got a taste of happiness.

Maybe I want to do better than I am, and want some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I cope in a way that is foreign, broken, strange, off beat, and out of order. I still don’t even know who I am, let alone who I will be. I’m just me, and I do not believe she has ever been good enough for too long. She might even be depressed, and can’t really…you know…afford to get that checked out either.

Sane people sleep at night, and creatives often stay awake writing and doing and making and musing. The TV is always on in my head, but I am not rare or special. I simply am, I simply chant “nam myoho renge kyo”, and I live. Sometimes not that great, sometimes not that smart, but I live. Is that okay?

It’s different. Not special, not snowflaky–just different. I am an ill-adjusted adult. Maybe I just want some of the things, but not the entire universe. Maybe I want to be gotten, and it’s not that I never am, but I am often misunderstood. It’s not a selfishness or ignoring the attention that is there, but do people really expect hurt and damage to disappear overnight? To just get over it now, because it’s not right, to climb the hill in silence, while shit is going on?

I..don’t know.

I think tonight, I am just more upset about the missing book than I am trying to understand my own self. Me–I’m just some lady who feels like she never belongs anywhere at any time, trying to stick my feet in soil that won’t even have me. Hoping to be greatness, but usually that “meh” you kind of like, until it tapers off two hours later.

Does any of this matter? Do I? Should I lock myself up, full of feelings?

I have a lot of woe is me days.

I can’t help it if I need to sort shit out to be a better person. I would much rather be sorted in an ongoing process of growth and change, than to just let it happen uncultivated–if that makes sense.

But I am going to bed now.

I will clean some more. I will try to find my book. I will try to recovered the decayed poem in my head. I will try to be me, whomever that girl woman is.