The Cat and I

I was brushing my teeth at the kitchen sink (funny how everyone at home does her brushing here), when outside the window, I saw the cat staring at me. It was the cat that trespasses into our house, the cat that steals our food, the cat that gives the children a scare when it suddenly jumps into a room through the window. It was the cat that I have tried scaring away many times, throwing stones at it, making loud, supposedly scary noises--all to no avail. It just won't leave.

I used to love cats when I was a child. Now I hate them. Maybe hate is too strong a word. I dislike them. Intensely. There.

I don't know when this dislike started. Maybe it began when I was pregnant for the first time, and I read somewhere that pregnant women are not safe around cats and cat litter. They can cause an infection that is extremely harmful to the fetus.

Maybe it was because my ex believed that cats are psychic vampires that steal our energy away. Well, they don't really intentionally steal it, but they absorb it from persons they come in contact with. That's just the way they are. Or so he believed. Whatever.

Now, the cat was staring at me straight on, as if daring me to go try to scare her away again.

I stared back, hard. But no human is equal to a cat's unflinching gaze.

Done with my brushing, I finally signaled surrender by bringing my head (and gaze) down to rinse my mouth.

So much has changed since my cat-loving childhood days. Now, I sometimes don't know who I am and what I have become. A stranger looks back at me in the mirror. But better that than a cat.