SmokeAndMirrors
DP Veteran
- Joined
- May 20, 2011
- Messages
- 18,282
- Reaction score
- 16,154
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Other
I have a kitty sitting beside me.
Not too long after the loss of my elder kitty, I stumbled upon a beautiful moggie cat people were spreading the word about. She had been up for adoption for months, being kept in foster. The reason she sat so long? Well, first of all, she's an adult -- about 1 1/2. And second of all, she's a bit of a trauma cat, and she was terrified in the shelter environment when people came to see her.
Her face grabbed me by the neck and I just had to go see her. So I did. Her signs were small, as she huddled, shaking, in the back of her carrier. But she was totally non-aggressive -- just scared. And when I sent her eye kisses, she returned them. When I pet her face, she turned it into my palm, as if to block out the sad yowls of the shelter.
And home with me she went.
I just realized something.
She's still got her whole life ahead of her. If we're converting cat to human, she's maybe slightly younger than the age I am now. I'm 24.
Assuming she doesn't have any kind of catastrophic disorder (which would be unusual, now that she's safely and healthfully in adulthood), I can expect her to live possibly as long as...
Until I am in my 40's.
My 40's. My 40's. My 40's. My 40's.
My 40's? I'm theoretically going to have 40's? What the hell happened to my teens!? Where did they go!? Wait, I'm halfway through my 20's? WHAT!?
When the hell did this happen? Why did no one wake me?
Oh my god, I have a skilled job, and an apartment, and a cat who will likely live until I'm middle aged, and I have to have my gin and tonic JUST SO, and no one makes it right.
:scared:
I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something about this.
Going out and madly playing beer pong, because I went to bed 18 and woke up 24. So next time I go to bed I could wake up 35, and this spry little kitty will be another granny cat.
Only problem with that is that I don't enjoy beer pong. Or really, getting wasted and partying in general. Because I'm 24, not 18, and I got bored with that quite a while ago.
I don't know when "quite a while ago" was, seeing as how I was just 18, like, YESTERDAY, but I know it was quite a while ago in the scheme of this weird wormhole that is getting older from a personal perspective.
What am I gonna be like at 40?
When I was 19, I had probably the lowest period of my life. My whole world just sort collapsed around me.
A good friend of mine -- then 30 -- didn't believe in my general ennui about my life at that point. One of those people who thinks I'll do something awesome someday. He asked me something I always remembered, because it was one of those things where the words the person said are just a simplistic outfit for the million other things they actually mean to say.
"What will you be like in 5 years?"
I know the answer to that now: completely unrecognizable from what I was at 19.
But at the time, I couldn't imagine myself any older than 22.
So much for that. 40 seems almost beyond comprehension.
I know I will probably be a curmudgeonly bar patron when it comes to my gin and tonics. I know my kitty will be very, very old. And possibly (but hopefully not) departed.
Beyond that, I haven't the faintest idea.
I just hope I don't sleep through it.
Not too long after the loss of my elder kitty, I stumbled upon a beautiful moggie cat people were spreading the word about. She had been up for adoption for months, being kept in foster. The reason she sat so long? Well, first of all, she's an adult -- about 1 1/2. And second of all, she's a bit of a trauma cat, and she was terrified in the shelter environment when people came to see her.
Her face grabbed me by the neck and I just had to go see her. So I did. Her signs were small, as she huddled, shaking, in the back of her carrier. But she was totally non-aggressive -- just scared. And when I sent her eye kisses, she returned them. When I pet her face, she turned it into my palm, as if to block out the sad yowls of the shelter.
And home with me she went.
I just realized something.
She's still got her whole life ahead of her. If we're converting cat to human, she's maybe slightly younger than the age I am now. I'm 24.
Assuming she doesn't have any kind of catastrophic disorder (which would be unusual, now that she's safely and healthfully in adulthood), I can expect her to live possibly as long as...
Until I am in my 40's.
My 40's. My 40's. My 40's. My 40's.
My 40's? I'm theoretically going to have 40's? What the hell happened to my teens!? Where did they go!? Wait, I'm halfway through my 20's? WHAT!?
When the hell did this happen? Why did no one wake me?
Oh my god, I have a skilled job, and an apartment, and a cat who will likely live until I'm middle aged, and I have to have my gin and tonic JUST SO, and no one makes it right.
:scared:
I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something about this.
Going out and madly playing beer pong, because I went to bed 18 and woke up 24. So next time I go to bed I could wake up 35, and this spry little kitty will be another granny cat.
Only problem with that is that I don't enjoy beer pong. Or really, getting wasted and partying in general. Because I'm 24, not 18, and I got bored with that quite a while ago.
I don't know when "quite a while ago" was, seeing as how I was just 18, like, YESTERDAY, but I know it was quite a while ago in the scheme of this weird wormhole that is getting older from a personal perspective.
What am I gonna be like at 40?
When I was 19, I had probably the lowest period of my life. My whole world just sort collapsed around me.
A good friend of mine -- then 30 -- didn't believe in my general ennui about my life at that point. One of those people who thinks I'll do something awesome someday. He asked me something I always remembered, because it was one of those things where the words the person said are just a simplistic outfit for the million other things they actually mean to say.
"What will you be like in 5 years?"
I know the answer to that now: completely unrecognizable from what I was at 19.
But at the time, I couldn't imagine myself any older than 22.
So much for that. 40 seems almost beyond comprehension.
I know I will probably be a curmudgeonly bar patron when it comes to my gin and tonics. I know my kitty will be very, very old. And possibly (but hopefully not) departed.
Beyond that, I haven't the faintest idea.
I just hope I don't sleep through it.