Hi! How are you? I am back after a week’s hiatus simply because last week, I had nothing new to tell you. This newsletter is as much of a safe space for me as (I hope) it is for you. And I would love to write about happier things, but I have been at a loss for the last month.
And trust me when I say I have looked for my will to write about sunnier things everywhere. I searched in quiet car rides and while waiting for the subway. In ICEs, when I refused to put on music so that I could think. And then an overwhelming sorrow eclipsed everything.
But here is another of my attempts to be absolutely normal, as if life didn’t happen in the last month. Here is my attempt to write about normal things, as if between Paris and Palestine, October didn’t go from the best to the worst month at all.
Yesterday, I wanted to find the photo of a cat I once called my own. His name was Tobias. He was named by my then-roommate, A, after possibly a friend or a lover from their semester abroad in Germany. In his short life with us, Tobias was the light of mine.
He wasn’t really my cat. I didn’t pay his bills, or buy his food or take him to the doctor. I was not his mum. I was his dispirited aunt who lived and played with him. And whom he gave some will to live.
Toby came to me in a year that was difficult, to say the least. I had come out of a horrible relationship. The younger generation would call it a situationship, but we didn’t have the luxury of this vocabulary in 2017. We called everything a relationship, a fling, an affair at best. Had I known this was a situationship, I would have plunged less deep into my anxious depression.
A was great friends with my ex. On some mornings when I would wake up from my fitful sleep, and stumble from the bathroom, to the kitchen to the bedroom to the doorway, I would find his shoes neatly arranged next to mine at the entrance to our small apartment and hear their giggles from A’s room. I would seethe inside, and then carry on to my work commute, groggy, hurting and sometimes, silently crying with my head on the cab window.
When Toby joined our household, I was slowly getting better. There were other factors too – a nascent crush, a different social circle, a new job offer – but Toby was the best of them all. The dreary, bitchy office I worked in was being renovated so I worked from home most days. With Toby for company.
With Toby on my lap, on my laptop, on my bed, fighting with my fairy lights, frolicking in the little puddle of water under the kitchen sink, disrupting my work, demanding my attention, making me fall in love with a non-human being for the very first time ever.
My mother was always vehemently against pets. So, only when I was 25 years old did I have the opportunity to have a cat I could almost call my own. Toby pulled me out of my deep, dark hole and threw sparkles in my face with his cuddles. His soft fur, tiny toe beans and loud purs made my long days of painful work from home a little better.
Toby always seemed to know when I was getting sad. He would saunter into my room, rub up against my legs, extend his paws at me, let out small meows that made me forget all my other hurts. I don’t know how I lived in that house, in that depression for so long without ending it all.
Maybe a little bit of it was because of Toby.
Toby didn’t stick around for very long, as most things you love don’t. I won’t break your heart with the story of where he went. My stories of Toby almost always begin with a wistful smile and end with a ball of sadness in my throat. Except this one. This one ends with pictures of him to brighten your Monday a bit.
Until next time, reminiscing our first pets and the love they gave us,
[PS: When I was searching for Toby’s photos in my Google cloud, I couldn’t find any. The sadness must have gotten so overwhelming at one point that I had deleted it all. I found these in my Instagram story archive today. I won’t delete them again.]
we all love toby :)