Adventures in Depression Pt 1

My depression causes me to do some crazy things.

Sometimes, I blame a lot of my life choices on depression. Depressed in school? Let’s SWITCH MAJORS! No job? Let’s MOVE TO FLORIDA! Still no job? Let’s GO BACK TO SCHOOL!

Ok, those aren’t terrible examples. These did lead me to my current life, which I’m pretty happy with.

It’s July, and we’ve reached the three-year anniversary of one of the crazier things my depression has caused me to do. Crazier than the third student loan I needed to go back to school.

I got cats.

Cats, you’re thinking.  What’s wrong with cats?

Well, for starters, I’m terribly allergic to them. It’s very well-known. When I was a kid, I was taken to an allergist. They did this horrid test where they drew a grid on my back and poked it with samples of things I could be allergic to.

Cats was the very first thing to turn red and swell up. Practically the second the sample touched me.

I’ve spent my life avoiding cats; so as you can tell, I was not in my right mind when I got mine.

The circumstances leading up to this weren’t anything special. I had just graduated from school (again). I was in debt. I was working two part-time jobs. I was biking 14 miles a day because I had no car. My roommates were moving out, because they didn’t like that I didn’t know about when I’d have a “real job”.

The depression hit pretty hard. I kept working at finding a job; I tried to occupy myself with hobbies, but there wasn’t much I could do with two jobs on opposite ends of the city. It got harder and harder to get out of bed each morning.

I knew I was heading down a very dark road, and felt the need to do something before it was too late. I needed a reason to get up every day. Work wasn’t enough. I needed something to take care of. Something besides myself. Not a plant, those were easy to neglect. A pet, then.

I didn’t have the schedule for dogs. I was too old for hamsters and rodents. The roommates that were moving in were against snakes. I had bought myself a fish the year before; and it died mysteriously and tragically, and the body had disappeared for a week. I finally found it when I cleaned the tank. It was a bit traumatic for me.

So that left…a cat.

It seemed like a great idea. Cats were reasonably easy to care for. The internet showed them off as moody, anti-social creatures. I could relate to that. They didn’t need to be walked, just fed and watered regularly. I could take extra medication to combat the allergies. Two of my leaving roommates had cats already, and the hives were much less frequent.

GUYS, THIS WAS GOING TO WORK.

The two roommates who had cats were kind enough to drive me to the animal shelter one afternoon off in July. They loved cats, so they were excited to help me pick mine out. As a bonus, the shelter was having a Fourth of July sale: a cat cost $17.76; and as a bonus, they were buy one, get one free.

I should have guessed by the sale: the shelter had a lot of cats. I didn’t quite realize it at first. The first few rooms had the adult cats. They had cages to themselves. I was a little concerned there weren’t going to be any kittens for me to adopt.

And then we entered the kitten room.

It was one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever seen. The room was filled with rows of cages. There were a lot of rows, a lot of stacks of cages, and a lot of kittens per cage. Hundreds of them, most of them meowing for attention or maybe help. They looked confused and sad and I wanted to bring all of them home with me, because this was horrible.

It didn’t take me long to find my first cat. We had barely entered a room when a giant pair of amber eyes locked with mine. It was a tiny grey tabby kitten with the saddest face I had ever seen. Think Puss In Boots from Shrek. Now imagine it on a real cat.

My roommates tried to convince me to look around a bit, but something inside me had already latched on. This was going to be my cat. This was a cat that was going to curl up with me while I read a book and drank tea. I found an employee to let me meet her. She fought to stay in the cage, but eventually accepted clinging to my shirt instead. And then she wouldn’t let go of me.

How could I pass that up?

My roommates finally talked me into walking around. I had been on the fence about getting two cats (I wasn’t even sure I could handle one!) but looking at all the cats jammed together in the cages, I couldn’t pass up the chance. Those poor darlings needed my help. I examined every cage, looking for the right friend for my grey kitten. I saw so many I liked. Adorable black cats. More tabbies. Fluffy white cats.

I was leaning towards a tuxedo cat. I went to ask one of the employees to fill out my claim sheet, but my roommates had picked up a funny looking orange tabby, with big ears and  I paused to pet him. His whole body was vibrating from purring. He was passed over to me and he burrowed his face in my neck, still purring loudly. I was a little worried he was going to hurt himself.

He wasn’t my first choice of cat. His ears were too big for his body, and his eyes bugged out a little. But he was just so damn happy to have people petting him and paying attention to him. He just needed love.

Someone else could adopt the tuxedo cat.

We checked out, and I signed all the papers saying I was fostering these kittens to adopt. The only trouble came when I went to pay- they wouldn’t accept checks. I ended up having to charge it to my parent’s credit card.

My parents, who would not approve of me adopting cats. That was going to be an awkward phone call.

They told me I had to wait until the kittens grew a little before I could bring them home. They would be fixed and vaccinated through the shelter, free of charge. We left, with me feeling hopeful. This was a good change. I was going to have to take care of myself, so I could take care of these cats. They needed me.

And then it sank in.

I had just adopted cats.

What had I been thinking?