Birds start chirping within hearing distance but unidentifiable as to where. It’s a foggy setting and I can’t catch my bearings. The noise grows louder and I suddenly sit up realizing it’s my alarm going off and I’m no longer stuck in a dream. Within seconds, I lose grasp of what my dream was actually about and shrug off the feeling of loss with a stretch and yawn. On the other side of the door I hear my little brother getting ready for school and running out of the door to catch the bus before it leaves. I reach over to my dresser and grab my pair of sweat pants. It’s not quite cool enough to wear them all day but the morning’s are crisp and entice dreams of colder weather. I make my way into the kitchen, start the electric kettle, pour a tiny mountain of coarse ground coffee into the french press, then try my best to touch my toes and work out the stiffness of my body.
The night had been long and demanding. Thoughts swirled around my head for hours despite my desire to sleep and let them go, they demanded I pay attention and manually sort them out. The darkness of the room became a blanket that kept me company while I tried to figure what feelings I couldn’t seem to let go of and why it was that I couldn’t do it.
“I guess I don’t want to,” I said to our cat, OJ. His name is short for “Orange Juice” which is obvious by his orange color, so I like to call him “OJ Da Juiceman”.
He meowed back at me in an encouraging way and belly flopped on the cold tile flooring. I leaned a little more forward and pet him under his chin which makes him stick it out in a goofy way. The kettle began to bubble loudly which was my cue to turn it off. I let the water cool down for a minute and poured a little bit into the french press causing the coffee to bloom as the grinds soak up the water and release their gasses. After a thirty second count I poured the rest of the water in and fill it up to the full mark. I continued to stretch while two minutes went by, stood up and halfway plunged and pulled it back up to make the grinds dance around in total submersion. For the following three minutes I thought of how these grinds were like my thoughts from last night. Floating around without a destination. Some float to the top where I think through them, and some float to the bottom where they stay, forgotten. Once the five minutes passed, I plunged all the grinds to the bottom of the press and poured myself a cup of the brew.
“You know, OJ, this french press is oddly symbolic of my brain. I have a tendency to suppress my thoughts when I can’t sort them out. I shove them to the bottom and try to move forward. I know I’m not the only one that does that, of course.”
“Meow”
“You’re right, I know. They don’t actually get solved that way. Eventually I have to find a solution for them, like I have to with these grinds. And then I have to clean the french press and prepare it for tomorrow’s coffee.”
“Mrrrrrow”
“Yep. You nailed it. That’s like me having to clean out my mind and prepare it for the future.”
“Do you think that’s why the thoughts still surface from time to time? Because I haven’t solved them? Some continue to float upwards to my consciousness?”
“…”
“Is it weird I’m having a conversation with a cat?”
“Not if it helps sort it all out,” OJ said.
“WHAT?!”
“…”
“DID YOU JUST TALK?!”
“Meow?”
“Holy mothballs, I’m losing it. I definitely did not get enough sleep last night.” I took a sip of hot coffee and felt the warmth spread down my esophagus into my stomach and heat up my body. I sat down on the tile next to the cat and leaned against the cabinet. The morning light was casting squares from the window onto the floor around us. Indescribably light dust particles moved all around us like a jury panel watching the unfolding of my sanity. I decided if I had lost it, and the cat was talking, rem or not, that I would enjoy this as much as possible. After all, I had always dreamed of having the Gift of Gab, which is the ability to talk to animals. Introverts like myself tend to be drawn more to animals anyway.
“You did have a solid point, though. I guess it is helping me lay it out and sort through it,” I said to him in hopes he would reply. I drank my coffee without taking me eyes off him.
“So you don’t want to let go of the feelings? Why?”
I nearly choked on my coffee. That son-of-a-bee-sting was actually talking to me. I couldn’t read his lips or anything but I heard the voice and his mouth did move in a chirpy kind of way.
“That’s what I have to figure out, isn’t it. I’m not quite sure.”
“What does your gut tell you? I find that’s how I make the best decisions.”
How many decisions did he have to make being a cat? I thought.
“My gut tells me…” I sat there for a while thinking until my butt went numb, “that I need to find a better spot to sit. Join me in the study?”
“Mrow”
I’ll take that as a yes. I get up with groans of age on my young body and wobble with half asleep legs over to my chair. The glass door to the right of the study cast light onto the hard wood. OJ decided he didn’t want to let the scene be out of sight but respected the conversation so sat in between study and light.
“I guess I don’t want to let go because I wanted that feeling for so long. There are cherished memories attached to those feelings. They made me feel whole and valued. Part of me is scared if I let it go, that I won’t be whole anymore. I don’t want to let them go because I don’t want to give up the happiest feelings I had.”
“Do those feelings still give you that happiness?”
“…no, I suppose they don’t. They keep me up at night. Now I’m left with longing to have those feelings again.”
“And how do you like that feeling?”
“I obviously don’t like the longing, butthead.”
“So…?”
“So…I have to let them go,” I said and was hit with a crushing sadness, a blow directly to my sternum that sent shockwaves through my whole body. I felt the warmth sidle out of me like it was being wrenched from my soul. And it hurt. It was so painful.
“Would you grow up?”
“Excuse me?” I choked in surprise through tears in my eyes.
“Only a kitten views things in black and white. Only a kitten lets their emotions run the show.”
“What are you saying?”
“Humans…” he said in an exasperated way, “I’m saying that it doesn’t have to be finite. You don’t have to surrender the happiness and you don’t have to tear out a part of you. Only the young think they are not who they are after such an experience. To be mature is to take in the experiences and feelings and memories, and grow from them. They are a part of you that doesn’t need to be ripped out. They are who you are now and who you will be in the future. The good and the bad will make you stronger. You’re sad because you lost something, but that is how life goes. We lose things and must move on because Life moves on with or without us. It is foolish to dwell on something you used to have by focusing solely on the point that you no longer have it. Instead, cherish what it was and look forward to what else you might get to experience. Now pour me some food; it’s been at least an hour since I last ate and I’m starving.”