JUST ANOTHER CRAZY CAT LADY

Allyssa Adams

Soft black fur with sparse white flecks, and a couple of patches; a small one on your throat and a larger one on your belly. Yellow-green eyes that never seem to stay one color, depending on the light and the angle. The collar with a bell around your neck that pings all the time makes you mine. 

You’re just another cat with a bad reputation; believed to be an unlucky breed by folklore. Yet, I don’t think it was luck that brought us together. It was fate. So, my dear Winnie Lou, I don’t think that you are bad luck. How could I? Because I love you so.

I finally understand the label of a crazy cat lady. That’s because you made me that way. 

I could explain all the ways you make me crazy in-depth, but that would take a while, and no one has time for that. So, I’ll be brief. 

You have made me crazy because I can’t go a second without worrying about you, telling you to stop doing something, or asking you what are you doing as you coyly try to trick me with your cuteness; feeding you treats, taking your photo, buying countless toys you don’t play with. Or listening to the ever-dreaded scratches in the litter box after it’s just been cleaned like it’s a Zen Garden scooping it all to one side. How many times a day do I have to remind you not to play in the plants, to not scratch on the couch, or to not bust down a door that separates us for mere minutes? Countless.  

On the other hand, I’m a crazy cat lady because of the love you’ve restored in my heart. You came into my life a little over a year ago, two months after something tragic, after my heart cracked and ceased to work. 

For a little over a year now, with your belly full of breakfast, you trek up to my room and mew and chirp at me until I let you in for our morning snuggles that seemingly always drift into the afternoon hours. It was your cries for help that led me to you, just a scared little kitten stuck in a tire, motherless. Your black fur was covered in dirt and dead leaves, on that crisp late September day. I wrapped you in a towel and walked around with you screaming for your mother, but soon you took to me. You snuggled into me, warmed by the towel and my jacket, nothing bothered us. Your body heat left red marks on my skin. You soon grew from a dinky underweight kitten to a slinky dainty girl with a growing pouch filled with treats.

We were forever bound by a golden thread, by a dog with small angel wings and a shining halo. I wonder if he smiled upon us that day when we found one another. 

Do you know, Winnie, how hard I tried not to fall in love with you? Afraid to get hurt again. Afraid that I couldn’t love you well enough after the loss of a furry friend.

Did you meet him? Did he reincarnate into you? Did he tell you to pounce on our elderly indoor cat? Because after all karma is supposedly a cat.

I came to realize that he was lingering behind your yellow-green eyes, Winnie Lou. It’s in the way you cock your head watching the birds. It’s the way you sprint to the kitchen for treats, the way he would. Have you ever seen an overweight dachshund run? It was comical how he would bounce, but you run full speed trying to see if you can beat the swinging door. 

You’ve restored my heart to full capacity with every purr. With every head-butt. With the countless biscuits on my blankets, snagging them. Every laugh. Every scratch upon my skin that's turned into a scar, a permanent reminder of you. Every gray hair that you’ve added to my twenty-three-year-old head. Even when I have no privacy or me-time. 

So here I am just another crazy cat lady in society’s eyes. Just another crazy cat lady, with a photo album on my phone full of hundreds of pictures of you. Just another crazy cat lady buying treats and cat food, sometimes those catnip toys without shame. Just another crazy cat lady covered in fur. Just another crazy cat lady watching for the feral cats wondering if the ones coming around are related to you. 

Yet, this is a badge I wear proudly. Forever. All because I have given you my heart and soul, unafraid to love you unconditionally, Winnie Lou.

Allyssa Adams is an aspiring novelist and this is her first publication. She is a May 2022 graduate from EIU with a bachelor’s in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Allyssa tends to be an avid reader and a lover of puzzles, other various arts and crafts projects, and animals (even the strays). You can find her on Instagram @allyssa_adams or for bookish content @bookish_bees24 (and on TikTok @Lyssiebeebooks).