Ineffective Emotional Hardware

Sometimes in life, a sequence of events takes place… and you don’t really have the mental pathways prepared to process it. I am struggling with one of those right now and as a result, I am in a bit of a funk. The above picture is of a cat that is not ours… but the one on the left was going to be. We lost my baby Kenzie in December of last year, and it has taken me a long time to process that as well. Recently my wife has been on this kick of bombarding me with kittens and claiming that we need one. On one hand, I agree that Kittens are adorable and I love them all… and on the other hand I have been slowly trying to bring Mollie our exceptionally skittish cat out of her shell. The latter has made me extremely hesitant to do anything to upset the delicate balance, especially given that the death of Kenzie threw her into a bit of a tailspin.

I had finally come to terms with the idea of getting a cat, and one of our friends about an hour away had a litter of adorable babies. My wife drove up to visit them and the cat on the left pretty much adopted her. I would show you some much cuter pictures… but they also include my wife and she would probably kill me for publicly posting them. Essentially it was decided that we would end up with this baby and started going through the planning phase for a new kitten. We were effectively waiting until she was good and weaned, and had set a date for this last Wednesday. I had taken the afternoon off and we were going to go pick the kitten up and then take her back to our veterinarian where she would get tests and such to make sure she did not have anything communicable that could harm our existing babies.

We did not go to get a cat on Wednesday, because on that morning three of the kittens… were just missing. These babies were indoor/outdoor animals or as we generally refer to them in rural America “barn cats”. The problem with outdoor animals is sometimes things happen to them. I remember as a kid having plenty of barn cats that would occasionally disappear never to be heard from again. We don’t know what happened to them… we know that the kitten we were about to adopt is gone. At this point a few days later, we have to assume the worst. I am struggling with this a lot. I had gotten attached to the idea of us getting this kitten… that granted I had never actually met myself. I had been flooded with pictures of the said kitten… but never actually met her.

Now I find myself in the position of my wife starting up the kitten bombardment.. and talking about how we need to go to a local shelter that is at levels of overflow that might trigger euthanasia. I however find myself still mourning a cat that I never actually knew. It is like I don’t really have the emotional hardware to process this one. My wife is largely fine because she went into this with the logical realization that outdoor cats can and do disappear. I, on the other hand, am far too soft-hearted for this and while I can shrug off the loss of a human… animals are precious babies that need to be loved and protected. I know that I will probably concede to being drafted into this mission of kitten hunting this weekend, but for now, I am exceptionally melancholy about that prospect.

3 thoughts on “Ineffective Emotional Hardware”

  1. The main reason I’d not want a cat was this. It’s bad enough that something can happen to the cats outside, but then not knowing what happened… even worse. 🙁

    After our dog had died, I didn’t want to get attached to a new dog. My parents got one from the shelter, though. That was at a point where I’d only been staying at my parents’ house a couple of days in a week. But said dog got very attached to me and I couldn’t help but love her! In the end, this was exactly what I had needed, but it was difficult to get there.

  2. Man, I feel you. We had two surprise puppies 9 years ago, but one only made it 96 hours. I was was crushed, and went from wanting to give them away to keeping his sister for as long as we can. She’ll probably be our last, but don’t bet on it.

  3. I know the feelings. I’m turning 60 this year, we have 3 cats, one age 15, the other two siblings are 14. The prospect of getting a kitten now is met with the, can I care for a cat at 75 years old. Right now our oldest is having some issue. Monday night we saw she was stumbling as she walked, so a trip to the emergency vet, exam, full blood panel, $462 and they are not sure. That night I was a wreck, thinking that Ok, this is the end, and going through what I have several times before. It’s never easy. But they think she may have just fallen and injured herself. So we have pain meds for her. Wednesday was another trip because she seemed worse. They did a neurological exam to rule out a stroke, her blood work is fine, no thyroid or diabetes issues. And the exam she seemed good. So we are in a 7 day wait and see, and if she’s not improving then it’s an Orthopedic surgical consult, and I’m dreading that.

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