The Truth of the Matter

From the age of twelve, I was convinced that love was, most definitely, overrated. I watched my friends start the process of puberty and become blubbering balls of hormones faster than I could get my first pimple. Having a sister five years my senior, I was already quite familiar with several forms of heartbreak, and I wasn’t very keen to experience any of them. They seemed to warp her into some sort of sick self-sacrificing machine - that wasn’t at all appealing to me.

At fifteen, I had what I still consider to be my first real relationship. It was as terrible, if not more so, as I expected, and it pretty much cemented my plan to become a crazy cat lady. I know, I know. This is something a young girl wouldn't usually aspire to be, but considering my alternatives (love-struck and dumb), I figured it was my best bet for staying sane and growing up to be a fully-functioning adult.

So, for the next few years I developed my plan. I was always a little eccentric; my family knew I was “special” from the very start, and, at seventeen, I drove up to our local chapter of the Humane Society to adopt a pet that would be completely mine. An animal I would present to the world to show my inner personality and to help me bring out my nurturing side.

Can you guess what I picked?

She was barely small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and so covered in fur that she looked more like a hairball for the first six months of her life. She was black and white with the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen, and for me, it was, most definitely, love at first sight.

Forget the fact that she’d already been returned more than once for bad behavior at a mere twelve weeks of age. Also, ignore that she was just a tad bipolar and seemed to come a little unglued at the slightest provocation. She would hiss and scratch and bite at nearly anyone who tried to get in her tiny, world-dominating way, but she loved me.

And for an overly emotional seventeen year-old going through a world of physical and mental changes, she was exactly what I needed.

So, I gave her a ridiculous name, and I welcomed her into my world. I thought that she would be the beginning of my life as the crazy cat lady, and I opened my arms to greet a future filled with fluffy hats, cottage gardens, and Studebakers with mismatched paint.

It was the perfect plan... with only one fatal flaw.