I want to be pleasantly surprised. I am ecstatic when someone goes out of their way to show their affection. I thrive on connection. Something, anything to let me know that I am not alone. I feel like a feral cat waiting for scraps in the alley. Feed me, love me, admire my ferocity. Try to pet me… I might let you. Come nearer, but not too close. Pet me, but don’t pick me up.

I’ve been thinking about my last post. I feel like a streaker. I’ve been clutching my robe for so long and now I am running down the highway with my belt undone, baring my soul (and bits), while screaming, “seeeeee meeeeee.” Except, I guess that analogy along with the feral cat metaphor could paint me as a lurker waiting for the opportunity to pounce. It’s funny to think of myself as a streaking feral kitty; I just want to be free, but at my wildest whim. And I want to be loved, but on my terms.

I used to have this cat, who was a she until she was a he. I named her Mabel, which was a random name that I got from the Elvis wedding chapel in Portland, where I quasi grew up. Before that, I lived in Virgina and Florida, but I digress. I got Mabel from an ad in the newspaper and I bought her for $10.00 from some random person in North Minneapolis. She was just an orange & white striped kitty, but I have no idea what her life had been like before I brought her home. This was 30 years ago.

Mabel would wait behind walls for you to walk by and then pounce on to your legs, puncture your skin, slide down to your feet with satisfaction and then, just run off, like she was playing a game that no-one but her wanted to play. My entire family had bloody legs at any given time. I’d never had a cat like her. Then, one day, her anatomy changed and she was a him and my brothers started calling him “Earl.” Eventually, a family decision was made to send Earl to my mom’s friend’s farm. Not the heavenly farm, a true-real-life-earth farm. They had another cat there, who unfortunately was found clawed to death; Earl sitting on a stool above her licking his paws in grandiosity. Earl then went to the heavenly farm.

No point to that, except that there’s no point to life. And I don’t mean that to say life has no meaning, oh no, I mean quite the opposite. Life, like my name, how it-seems so small that it’s pronounced correctly, is full of small moments that are so big. The smallest, seemingly insignificant things are the most profound. Like, what if I wasn’t worried about being irritable and thinking that I needed to take hormones and that if I hadn’t previously had a hormone receptive cancer, then I wouldn’t have called my oncologist to see if I could take hormones? And then I wouldn’t have known that I was supposed to have been getting bi-annual check ups to make sure my cancer hadn’t recurred? They said to me on the phone, “where have you been?” Like I had been in Africa with the Peace Corps (which I wouldn’t have minded).

That was 2 years ago in 2024, two years after I was originally diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 2022. HRT was starting to be all the rage (or maybe it already was) and I wanted in on that. I wanted to feel, hmmm, less, hmmm, how do I say…. bitchy? But picture this: your favorite song playing on the record player and all in a moment, a screeeeeech, silence, and then everyone staring at you. “Can you explain where you have been the last two years, missy?” “Gosh,” I said, “I’ve been right here in Minnesota, not Africa, and I haven’t seen one reminder in my chart to make an appointment.” “Well,” and I could just picture some snarky tenured nurse who was at her wits end with unaware patients, “the doctor wants to see you.”

My goodness, who knew I was so wanted. Well, it was my time to shine; I channeled my inner feral kitty. So, I wore a put-together outfit and decided to go without my prosthetic boobies, to flaunt my scars. The oncologist softly touched my “lymph nodes” around my neck and collar bone. I put lymph nodes into quotation marks, because, may I ask… why the efff do they do that??? Knowing what I know now, it’s complete BS. I have cancer activity, that showed up on my PET scan, in my neck and collar bone nodes and you CANNOT feel it at all. So, I said, “that’s it? I got reamed a new one for you to just feel my neck and décolletage? For what?!” He replied, “well, if you had symptoms, we would also do a cat scan.” I said, “well, I do have a bit of a ticklish cough that I’ve noticed lately.” He asked, “Ok, would you like a cat scan?” I said, “sure.”.

And that’s how it started. Or , rather, continued….