Write a Short Story (38 0f 40)

The Tail 

I’m fairly certain that my cat is trying to kill me.

I know that makes me sound crazy, but I can assure you, I am not insane. Last night, I was in the living room, dozing a bit, and half-listening to Jeopardy playing in the background. 

You can tell a Sphynx cat by its lack of hair. A Manx is lacking…

Now, I’m not usually good with trivia, but I recognized this answer right away. “What is a tail?” I mumbled in time with the contestant. A smug, satisfactory glow spread through me, rousing me from my rest.

How I know this particular fact is because I happen to own a tailless cat. She’s not a real Manx though...one born without a tail, a genetic mutation or something. No, when I got Luna, she came with her long black tail securely attached.

I sat up and that’s when I smelled it…the putrid egg-y scent of gas. I followed my nose to the source of the leak and found myself in the kitchen. One of the burners on the stovetop was turned just enough to trigger the propane. I could hear the low hiss as it continued to pour out. Mind you, I had not been in the kitchen since dinner and even then, I only used the microwave. I hadn’t even touched the stove.

“What in the hell?” I asked, quickly turning the knob all the way off and flinging open the window. Who knows how long that thing had been leaking for?! I grabbed the kitchen towel and waved it wildly about, trying to disperse the gas. 

When the air finally started to smell fresh again, I realized she had been there the whole time: Luna, perched on the counter, unflinching, watching me.

She’s always watching me.  

It started two years ago. I was sitting at the breakfast table working on the book of crosswords Janine had bought for me. She had said it’d be good for my mind, give it exercise. I told her at my age, I had earned the right not to exercise anything anymore. 

I chuckled, but she didn’t laugh.

Anyway, I was feeling rather pleased with myself, having just solved 14 Down (an eight-letter word meaning Unreasonably Anxious). I adjusted myself a bit in the seat, and that’s when I heard it: a banshee yowl so loud it toppled me right onto the floor. Somehow I had moved the seat just enough to catch the cat’s tail under the chair leg. I hadn’t realized she had been napping near my feet. I watched as Luna bolted out of the room, her long black tail bent unnaturally behind her.    

The vet had said that you can save an injured tail…most of the time. This, however, was not going to be one of those times. I had unknowingly put my full weight on it and several of the bones had been crushed. He took it off the next day. When I told Janine what happened, she suggested maybe I should reconsider my stance on exercise. 

This time I was the one not laughing.

I tried to make it up to Luna. Just because there was less of her to love didn’t mean I had to love her less. I bought her a battery-powered ball that moves all on its own, figured chasing after it would help her forget the part of her that had been lopped off. I even had Janine pick up some of that expensive canned food. You know, the type that smells more like something that’s already come back up rather than something that’s about to go down.

Luna didn’t care.

The night she came home from the animal hospital, she laid down across the room, neck wrapped in her plastic collar of shame, and just stared at me. At first I thought she was still a little squirrely from the anesthesia, but as time went on, it felt more like she was studying me.

Sometimes I’d leave her sleeping in one room. I’d go in the kitchen to fix up a sandwich and suddenly I would just feel eyes on me. Sure enough, there'd be Luna. Not as a normal cat would be, curiously curling herself around my feet in hopes of a dropped morsel or two. Rather, she’d keep her distance, peering at me from around the doorframe. 

She was stalking me, in my own home.

Last year I took a bad spill on one of my many middle of the night trips to the bathroom. (No one tells you how much sleep you will lose due to bladder urgency when you get old.) I had just woken up from a dream in which I was in a maze. 

In the dream, I needed to find something, something I very much desired, but every time I turned a corner, I would get distracted by a flash of movement behind me. I’d stop short and turn quickly, hoping to catch a glimpse of this stealth prankster. 

Time and time again I tried, all to no avail. Eventually, I rounded what seemed to be the hundredth corner and saw the thing for which I knew I had been searching...a giant, delicious-looking block of cheddar cheese. That’s when I realized it: I was, in fact, a rat. And that thing that had been following me? 

My own serpentine gray tail. 

I climbed out of bed and began to make my way down the old familiar path to the toilet when my slippered foot came down on something I wasn’t expecting. I recoiled, fearing the repercussions of once again placing the fullness of my weight onto something fragile. 

The sudden change of direction caused my balance to falter. I tried to catch myself but instead toppled headlong into the bannister at the top of the stairs. It was lucky that I wasn’t a step or two further down the hall. I would’ve missed the bannister entirely and been pitched down the stairs to my ultimate demise. 

Janine found me the next morning, sprawled out on the landing, sporting a goose-egg along with my soiled pajama bottoms. “How in the world did you manage this?” she asked as she helped me to my feet. “There isn’t even anything to trip over between your bed and the bathroom.”  

“I don’t know,” I replied, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing that tripped me up was small and soft.

And cat-shaped. 

Then there was the incident this past winter. The snow had been falling since early afternoon. It was really starting to stick. I love a good storm, especially now that the neighbor’s grandkid shovels my driveway too. 

I was taking one last look out the front door before bed when the light from the doorway glinted off something reflective in the snowdrift forming in the yard. I opened the door a bit further and let my eyes adjust. Sure enough, it was Luna. Dark, motionless and watching, as if she had just been waiting for me to figure out she was out there. 

“C’mon back in here,” I beckoned, feeling the chill cut through my night shirt. She didn’t budge. A frozen feline lawn jockey. 

I reached down, grabbed my slipper and tossed it her direction, hoped it would scare that stubborn beast into motion. It landed with a soft plop in the snow about a foot to her left. She turned her head, briefly glancing at the hole that my slipper had now disappeared into, and then returned her gaze to me. 

“Dammit,” I mumbled as I realized that I was now going to have to retrieve not only my slipper, but the cat too. 

I stepped my one barefoot out onto the porch, the sloshy wetness seeping up through my toes. It was cold! I prefer to spend my winter evenings warm in the living room so I had forgotten how frigid deep January can be. 

“C’mon, Luna!” I said, as I quickly hobble-hopped her direction. As soon as I was within striking distance, she bolted back inside. “Crazy cat.” I shook my head and reached down to retrieve my soggy slipper. 

When I turned back towards the porch, I noticed the light around me was changing. I looked up to see the front door swinging closed. I lunged forward, trying to catch it before it latched, but the click echoed hollowly in the stillness of the night. I tried the handle, a sinking feeling inside me hinted at what I already knew.

I was locked out. 

So I did what any sane and logical person would in that situation. I panicked. I banged furiously on the front door, demanding the cat let me in! I could see her sitting in the entryway through the side window pane. Our eyes met and she held my gaze for several seconds before standing and arching her back in a long, slow stretch. 

Then she turned her tailless backside towards me and sauntered away. 

A shiver ran up my spine. My toes were numb and my hands hurt from the cold and the banging. I hugged my arms in tight and felt something brush against my chest. It was the life alert necklace Janine had forced me to wear after my fall! At the time, I was pretty angry at her for suggesting I would need such a device, but now I could just kiss her for her annoying insistence. I pressed the button and within a half hour, I was thawing my frozen bits in a nice hot shower. 

When Janine had arrived the next day, I told her my suspicions. Luna was plotting to kill me. Janine had laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous, George. Cats don’t kill people, especially not tailless ones.” 

But this morning, as I sipped my coffee and watched out the window at Luna pawing out a curiously rectangular area of the yard, I wondered. Cats are said to have nine lives, but just how many lives do I have left?

 

Find Love (37 of 40)

Find love.

Originally this was worded on the list as fall in love. I'm not sure why I wrote it that way. I wasn't at all interested in falling in love. I guess it felt like a DREAM BIG! idea. At the time, my heart didn't just feel broken; it felt eviscerated. 

It's said "Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love." And in my pre-divorce life, I loved big. I loved my friends. I loved my church. For a long time, I loved my husband. The post-separation falling away of those friends and faith community was personally one of the most devastating parts of the divorce. In many ways it was a harder loss than the marriage itself, and, honestly, one aspect I did not see coming. The rejection was huge. My grief was bigger. 

At some point I realized that fall in love was too big a goal for me. My capacity for love felt hindered by the residual scar tissue. I needed to start smaller. Changing the wording to Find Love helped to reframe the idea into a more manageable endeavor.

In English, we have one word to describe a multitude of depth and emotion. This one wholly inadequate word encompasses all the possible loves that bring value and worth into our existence. The Greeks expressed love better, utilizing different words for specific aspects of affection. I found a list that helped to me seek out and recognize love in whatever form it presented itself in my life. 

Storge; natural, familial love. 

Storge is the kind of love that just exists, without question or requirement.

The love for my kind and considerate son, who stops playing video games just to come tell me he loves me, who teases me with sick burns and texts me his hopes and ideas for the future. He is the strong and steady current propelling us ahead. 

And the love for my brave, bold and brilliant daughter whose impeccable comedic timing is credited for much of the laughter in our house. She is creative, emotionally complex and a little fiery. She is the moment of excitement when you know anything could happen. 

While this love may be natural, that's not to say that it isn't complex. It's a packaged deal kind of love: the desire to lead by good example and the constant confrontation of my own shortcomings; the fierce need to protect them and the ultimate lack of control; the frustration of groundhog-day minutia and the longing that sends me out of bed at night to check on them just one more time. 

It is the hardest easy love there is. 

Philia; friendship love. 

Philia has come back to me in gracious and unexpected ways. 

In a friend's offer to feed me dinner. The first time it happened, I cried. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to feel cared for.

In the common goals I shared with my classmates. They lightened life for me daily in the early months.  

In the miles walked throughout my town with a friend who listened as I shared the same pain again and again.

In the neighbor who ushered my children away on a secret mission to make sure my first single birthday wasn't without celebration.

In the coworkers who have taught me, teased me, and survived the front lines alongside me.

And most definitely in the single mamas I was so fortunate to move next to. Women who know me in the way only one who has walked in your shoes can. Friendship that includes daily check ins, the sharing of rides (and food or wine when needed), an impressively NSFW group text, and laughter or outrage as the situation may require. 

Agape: universal love. 

This is often referred to as God love. Not gonna lie, this one was tricky for me.

Being a Christian defined much of my adult life, but after the divorce, it didn't feel like there was room for me at the table anymore. When all that was left was rubble, it was hard to see the individual components, hard to separate out what was still good and true from what was human and fallible.

What I did see was my sister, who sat with me in my brokenness and said, You don't have to tell me the details. You can keep for yourself what you need to. But I will be here. I will listen and I will witness your grief. I will not leave. I will not judge. I will not call back my love. I will not increase your burden. I will walk alongside you while you do the holy, solitary, and brutal work of rising again. 

I know no better example of agape than her.  

Ludus; playful, uncommitted love. 

In today's terms, this roughly translates to dating apps.

When approaching the dating world in today's environment, one must quickly learn to accept disappointment is an inevitable consequence. The vast majority of profiles will contain at least one of the following immediately no criteria: 

• A man making ducklips.
• Employed at "Self "or "Such-and-Such Dispensary."
• Full-face photos of his children. 
• 6' Height: I like to refer to this as a fisherman's 6, which is realistically 5'10'...at best.

Of the remaining fraction, several will (1) have applied their own nope protocol to you (2) lack the ability to converse past how's your night? (3) have zero spark and/or (4) meet you in person and ghost you immediately after.

But, BUT! Sometimes you get lucky enough to meet interesting and wonderful people who stay in your life despite the fact that you both know it's not a love match. People who compose amazing songs about sourdough. People who introduce you to fried pickles. People who let you drag them on mediocre adventures, watch old movies with you over facetime, and let you hang out with their magnificently fat cat. For that alone, I'd say it's been worth it. 

I've saved the most challenging loves to restore for last:

Philautia: self love, and Eros: romantic, passionate love. 

Philautia is a post all it's own, so I'm not going to address it here. Eros is as follows.

The first time I loved a boy I was three. We went to preschool together. His first name was Scott. I didn't know his last name but we liked to throw tiny rocks into the air together. One time, I threw a high one. We watched, heads tilted up, as the rock descended...directly into my gaping mouth. Before I even knew what hit me, I had swallowed it. From that day on this boy would be known to me as Scott Rock. 

I have no idea what drew me to him, nor to the other 'loves' I would know from the age of three until twenty. One was a shy boy who gave me my first kiss because I orchestrated a game of Truth or Dare in my favor. One was the handsome Senior to my Sophomore, in which my love was unrequited. One was a foolish, immature, and short-lived summer love. One love a secret I kept, even from myself. One love was an artist who created space for me to become someone new. 

While all of these loves had value, in my life I have only truly fallen in love twice. The kind of love where I knew that I knew that I knew that this was the person with whom I was supposed to be. 

One of those loves grew me up, made me a mother, and lasted nearly fifteen years. 

The other an awakening, an all-consuming rapid expansion of love, and an earth-shattering heartbreak. A love that taught me anything that costs everything is too expensive a price to pay.  

Earlier this year, I began dating someone. And to be honest, it's rather terrifying. Partly because that damaged heart of mine is still healing and partly because how do you trust yourself again after losing what you once believed with every part of you was forever? I'm not sure. It's uncharted territory. 

But, regardless of my apprehension, this man loves me. He loves me in action and he loves me in word. And he desires to love me well. 

I don't know when I will be ready to fall in love again, but as this post has shown, there is no doubt that I have already found love in abundance. 

Get in Shape (36 of 40)

Two weeks.

There are two weeks left before I turn 40.

I want to be able to wrap this list up in a tidy bow and say, "Look! I did it! I set all these goals and I completed every one fully!" I want to check the boxes, dust off my hands, and confidently walk away from the finished project. 

Onward and upward…or whatever. 

But the truth is, I'm looking at the remaining items on my list and they all feel kind of heavy and hard to articulate. Everything that is left is work-in-progress material and just because the magic date arrives in two weeks, does not mean that I have fully achieved everything I set out to. I feel conflicted about that. 

Case in point, one year ago, I was as far as I've ever been away from the goal of "getting in shape." The resurgence of the eating disorder had wreaked havoc on me physically and emotionally. I was sitting nearly forty pounds heavier than I had been two years prior. I felt trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of feast or famine. My back hurt in a please-PLEASE-don't-make-me-pick-that-thing-up-off-the-floor kind of way. I’d outgrown most of my clothes and the only thing that seemed to fit was the shame I wore walking around in a body I felt betrayed by. I didn't want to be seen. I avoided looking in the mirror. I felt scared and hopeless.  

I know I'm not alone in this. The way in which women view their bodies and their relationship with food is complicated. For many of us, it is a struggle. I wanted to lose the weight, in fact I was desperate for it, but even more than that, I wanted to stop being at war with myself.

I just had no idea how to begin. 

So I did what anyone does when they don't know the answer...I googled it. My late-night web search put me in touch with Andrew, a highly skilled personal trainer and nutritionist who didn't flinch when I laid it all out there: the eating disorder, the weight gain, the back injury, and the existential overwhelmingness (overwhelmnity? overwhelmnitude?) of life.  

He customized a nutrition plan for me to begin to stabilize the metabolic swings I had been creating for myself. He set up dynamic and rehabilitative workouts focused more on building my core and strengthening my whole body than solely on a specific goal of "losing weight." He even took note of my sheer hatred of burpees and (mostly) doesn't require them of me. He encouraged me at every corner. He told me when my squats sucked and he made me laugh about it. 

And you know what's happened? Over the last year I have...

• Lost and kept off 25 pounds.
• Created a stronger and more stable body.
• Consistently eaten nutrient-dense foods. (The spinach, oh yes, the spinach.)
• Changed my body composition.
• Stretched more regularly.
• Significantly decreased purges.
• Improved my posture. (Andrew would tell you I still have a ways to go here.)
• Learned how to protect my back when that-thing-just-simply-must-come-off-the-floor.
• Not gone on a single fad or crash diet. 
• Practiced being kinder to the reflection in the mirror.
• Finally, finally (!) gotten relief from the constant back pain.

So, am I where I dreamed I would be when I set the goal to "Get in Shape" by forty? 

Eh, no. 

But that doesn't negate all the hard work that I have done to get to where I am now. And honestly, I feel pretty good about this body I have. I have confidence that I will get to the destination, despite the fact that it's not likely to be in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, please enjoy this visual of the progress I've made in the handstand department. The first picture shows where I started, and believe me when I tell you, just getting that far was an effort in and of itself.