News Years Eve, 2014

So it's New Year's Eve, 2014 and I'm wondering how long it will actually take me to finish this post; but I did resolve to write more this upcoming year and blogging (versus personal journaling) will be my forum.  Of course, that takes the privacy out of the equation, not to mention increasing the need for grammar, punctuation, and political correctness, but c'est la vie.

I've been pushing around the idea in my pea brain of writing a book someday (don't ask what it's about other than it will be a best seller and you can say you knew me when...) and I think the efforts I put into blogging will help in the long-term book endeavor.

New Year's is always a time of reflection and regret.

People say, never regret - just learn from it.  I can't help but have regrets because I could have changed the habits I regret.  My decisions, yes, I made those in good faith and those that turned out not to be for the best, well, I've learned from those.  But habits and choices...I knew better and those I regret.

Example:  I've always been told never to feed a stray cat because they won't find their way back home if you feed them.  

A few years ago there was a gray cat in my garden while I was weeding, meowing at me.  I told it to go back home, I have three cats and a dog and can't adopt another.  I made "shoo-ing" motions and it ran.  I knew I did wrong at that very moment and felt bad, but rationalized those feelings away.  The dog would have fought with it, the other cats would have fought with it, my husband would have been upset with me, etc.  After all, I've been woken up in the middle of the night by cat fights.  There were always wandering cats that my cats were chasing out of the yard - why should this one be any different?  But it was different.  I knew this was a different circumstance.  I regretted it instantly.

A few weeks later a neighbor from down the road put up "Lost Cat" signs for two cats, one gray, and we saw this gray cat hunting in our yard and field occasionally.  I tried a have-a-heart trap but the dog kept springing it to get at the food inside it.  The neighbor gave up ever seeing either of their two cats again.  I though the gray cat would never make it through the winter, especially when we got 18" of snow early in the season and the ground stayed covered  for a few months.  

As soon as we saw grass peaking through in the spring, there was "GrayCat" out in the yard hunting mice again!  I was so happy to see him, but I couldn't coax him near enough to feed him.  This went on for almost three years!!  The poor baby lived on his own in Connecticut, from an indoor cat to being a feral, outdoor cat.

Two summers ago, my last indoor/outdoor cat was almost 18 years old and the other two indoor cats were picking on her.  She didn't want to come inside anymore, so I fed her outside all summer.  GrayCat finally discovered her catfood on the steps outside and started coming to eat on our doorstep.  After our old Lady cat went to the rainbow bridge, I kept putting food out for the gray boy.  I regretted my shoo-ing him away all those years ago.  If I hadn't done that, he might have been returned to his family or, at the very least, he might have been living inside with us rather than having several years of hardship that my habit of shoo-ing stray cats cost him.

I thought long and hard about what I did to that poor cat, just the simple action of pushing him away, and the impact it had on his life.  He's a tough guy - he survived it.  You see, his name is Barney now. He decided sometime that summer to adopt us.  We kept feeding him and come fall time when it was getting colder, I scooped him up and took him inside the house and said, "Barney, you're not going out again until you learn that this is your forever home."

Barney is one of the sweetest cats I've ever had the pleasure of living with.  He's so gentle with my toddler grandson that I don't worry about the child getting scratched.  Barney was never aggressive with any of the other animals we had, even when they were aggressive with him.  Barney cleared all the chipmunks out of my garden, the mice out of the cellar, and when he really likes you he will stand on your foot with his hind leg.

This simple, little 11 pound stray cat has taught me to think a bit more carefully so that I don't have as many regrets as before, and to enjoy as much of life as possible when you can.  Barney has shown me that family sometimes comes a second time around, not just the first time - so keep your eyes open and watch for the new friend that might become a treasured family member.  And he taught me to never refuse to be kind or to accept kindness.

As for the rest of the New Year resolutions, well, I'm going to wait and see what happens tomorrow.