a classic fool.

It’s t-minus one week until Christmas.

In fact, it’s t-minus 5 days until Christmas.

I had just returned from a night out on the town. Wine flowing through me as thickly as the blood in my veins, I felt that my night was cut uncomfortably short.

Not wanting to end the eve as early as 9pm, I was nonetheless dropped off at my house, all gussied in red, having made but one glamourous appearance at Addie Camp for a dinner date with a friend.

“You just need another cat!” I was told when I complained about my loneliness. Like having another feline friend can satiate my human need for companionship and desire.

But I laugh it off anyway, as loneliness is so unattractive.

It’s funny: everyone always tells me I’ll find someone when I’m not looking. Yet I’m lonely because I haven’t found someone, so I’m always looking.

Which just feels like my record player of a life will never stop skipping.

Once I managed to get into the safety of my house, I very quickly shut the door and slid dramatically to the floor, tears making their way down my cheeks as I realized that I was once again alone on a Saturday night.

Unzipping myself, beautiful breasts making a hopeful appearance for eyes other than mine, I wept in darkness as my cat circled around me, rubbing my legs this way and that, sensing that something was amiss.

I sat there for quite some time, tears continuously flowing down my face, leaving mascara stained cheeks in their wake. I played at the ribbon wrapped around my wrist, feeling like that present at the end of a gift exchange that no one wants to open.

Finally, when I felt that all had run dry and there was no liquid left within me, I walked to my bedroom, my sexy red dress littered behind me.

Some might read this and say it was the alcohol that caused this demise, but in this case, the alcohol had but enhanced what I’m always feeling:

Loneliness.

I know. It’s hideous, it’s shameful, and I should feel “whole on my own” as a independent woman who don’t need no man, but who am I kidding? I’m not.

I haven’t been for some time.

And I know that that’s such an unattractive quality and that having a companion won’t satisfy my innate need for completion because the fact of the matter is, something is missing within me, and I can’t find that in someone else.

It’s to the point where I struggle to get through a night without breaking down, where my own embrace is becoming a sad pitiful last ditch gesture, where I’m becoming increasingly exhausted always pretending to be happy when on the inside, I’m hurting.

It’s hard to fake not being bothered when other people talk about their love lives. It’s hard when I let my emotions turn to anger when a guy doesn’t message me back not because he hurt me in any way, but because he doesn’t like me, and anger is my only rational coping mechanism. It’s tough watching couples do crosswords together on Sunday mornings, as I long so badly for that to be me and someone special. It’s even rough when I see my sister being spoiled by someone who really loves her. I dislike that jealous part of me. But I struggle not to feel this way when loneliness feels like a visceral blanket wrapping itself around my heart, choking me until the tears come out.

I feel like a classic fool, like I have become that girl in college that one roommate once warned me about who I was becoming. I remember it plain as day. I was going on about not needing a man, not wanting to date, being fine by myself and he told me:

“One day all that pretending isn’t going to hide the fact that you want all those things.”

And here we are.

I feel like I’m chanting to myself over and over again that I’m fine and confident and independent in the hopes that it becomes true, but I think I’m just too embarrassed to admit that I’m honestly just lonely being by myself too much. For going home by myself. Living by myself. Cooking by myself. Pleasing myself, by myself.

It’s taken over to where my adness is inhibiting me from enjoying activities that once brought me joy (except writing-God, you are my saving grace) and is interfering with holiday splendor and time with my family. I know it’s not normal to feel better when I’m alone and isolated, so it’s time I make some changes.

I know my perspective is in the wrong place and that looking at me from a bystander’s view, everything appears splendid. And it should be, but that’s not how I feel. I have such fabulous friends, an adoring family, a happy kitty, and it pains me to be so low when everything should be so high.

I’m at that point where I’m exhausted with how my emotions are controlling my outlook on life and I’m willing to explore the truth behind being potentially depressed. Already, I have made efforts in finding help and I’m proud of myself for taking the first step in recovery, of whatever I may have.

They say that growing may feel like breaking at first and I feel that in my core.

But a classic fool I will no longer be, and that is enough to keep me going forward.

Smitten with a Kitten.

So… not how my night was going to go, but I recently ended up with a two week old kitten.

There I was, working an ordinary Tuesday evening, and out of the blue, two gals who are very involved in the animal community asked if I would like to foster a kitten.

A photo had just been sent of this fragile baby, who was found in an abandoned barn, and she needed somewhere to sleep for the night. A somewhere that wasn’t the frigidity of an old barn nor the loneliness of the pound.

Having a soft spot for animals, especially of the feline variety, I hesitated, still. I had been asked before, but inexperience in fostering held me back.

But it’s the season of giving and I couldn’t allow a baby kitty who spent her first few weeks in a barn without a safe place to sleep, so it didn’t take long before I succumbed. Plus, her big round eyes. I mean, how could I resist?

Changing plans (not that I had wild Tuesday night plans anyway, unless you count a glass of wine and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel wild..), I made my way over to the home where she had been dropped, and along the way, I received a call.

Apparently, the kitten was younger than we thought. Instead of five weeks old, she was instead two.

Two weeks old.

Weighing less than 1 pound.

Now in my care.

Oh boy. Or I guess I should say “oh girl.”

After picking her up in the confines of a warm blankie, I made my way over to another cat woman's house, heart melting at the purrfect purrs coming out of this little body now in my lap.

Arriving naïvely, I was given the lowdown, the very extensive and stressful lowdown that comes with taking care of a neonatal kitten.

• Feedings every 2-3 hours, a formula given by syringe into her mouth

• Wiping of the genital area to help encourage her to go to the bathroom

• A heated blanket to keep her warm at night, as kittens do not yet have temperature regulators

Nooooooo pressure or anything.

Arriving at my house in a flurry of food formula, heated blankets and a teeny tiny kitten who had been through so much in her short weeks of living, I was met with my own cat, who was very unhappy.

Coming home with someone else in my arms made my cat uneasy and jealous, especially as this new kid on the block was now hogging all the attention.

In the next few hours, I crammed myself with all I could from Hannah Shaw, THE Kitten Lady.

Videos on how to feed properly, information regarding sleep and regularity of feeding, and then finally, I laid to rest with a two week old kitten beside me in her warm carrier.

If I thought that was the end of my night, boy was I wrong.

Aside from waking up every three hours to meticulously mix her formula with warm water and patiently feed her with a syringe (careful not to go too fast), I spent a long hour hunting through the house wearing nothing but boxers in search of my own cat, Guji. Crying from exhaustion and stress and frustration that I didn’t have her with me in bed, I tore through the house in topless confusion, until I finally found her hiding behind my curtains.

I did not get a lot of sleep that night and in the morning, I felt a little bit of sweet relief when I gave her to another foster family with a mama cat that could nurse her best.

And I realized just how much work it was to take care of little ones.

I have mad respect for foster families, this showed me that. The generosity, the patience, the kindness, the strength and the hard work of foster parents and their families is often unrecognized and after this one night with a kitten, I realized that they need more recognition for all that they do.

Being smitten with a kitten is one thing, but caring for it and helping it grow healthy and properly is entirely another.

Exhausted from just one night of caring for something so small, it opened my eyes to the possibility of being part of this community of folks that open their hearts and their homes to those who are helpless or lost.

Course, I’ll have to check with Guji first…