oh my gosh. blog. long time no updates. i had a long week so let me talk about it. saturday two weeks ago i took midnight to the vet with my dad because she'd been grooming herself too often and too roughly and i had noticed some parts of her fur were looking a little thinned out, turns out it's just seasonal allergies since she had the exact same thing happen last year right around this time, the vet connected the dots for me and said it's fine, gave her some vitamins and allergy pills and that was it. OR WAS IT? no! while i was busy talking to the vet, my dad had taken interest in a little kitten that was hanging around inside the building. little tiny kitten. immediate bond. the vet explained that the kitty was a stray that had been brought in with a broken leg a while ago, been treated, and she now was waiting to be adopted. my dad and i shared a look, left the vet, went home, discussed it, drove back to the vet, picked up the kitten, and brought her home. omg. the cutest little thing. i'll put a couple pictures down below. immediately i fell in love with her, she was so comfortable with me right off the bat and just wanted to be on my chest and all up in my face all of the time. finding the appropriate name for her took a couple days but eventually i settled on tama, after this lady. i like it. i think it suits her. i feel like it's a sign, the fact that she's a calico. so many cats that have come and gone from my life and have meant something to me in some way or another have been calicos. i found this on my old tumblr blog, written on july 2021: "...i do believe my spirit animal is a calico kitty. they just always seem to find me."

her first daaay...

look at her.

obviously midnight wasn't a fan of any of this. IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW, cats are very territorial and hate change, especially an older cat like midnight who's over 4 years old now. i kept tama in my room for the first couple of days but this didn't stop midnight from realizing something was up, hissing under the door, generally acting weird and stand-offish, and starting to spend the whole day in the living room as if a wall had risen from the ground up that blocked out the rest of the house for her. she didn't want to go anywhere near my room. the only times she did, she would crouch down to stare from under the door and hiss whenever tama had the audacity to come up to her from the other side. this is where my troubles begin. during this time i watched a million youtube videos about how to introduce cats, how to care for a new kitten and how to make my older cat not hate her, tips and tricks for creating positive associations between two cats, people's personal experiences, basically anything and everything related to my situation. it made me go a little insane to be honest. (i have to specifically mention jackson galaxy here, i remember watching him on his show "my cat from hell" when i was a kid and being fascinated, so finding his videos to get me through this period was kind of a funny full circle moment. he's great.) trying to keep both the cats as happy as they can be became my entire life for a couple of days. tama was sick and sneezing during this whole thing as well, so i couldn't even sleep in my own room. i think this was the most stressed i've been in a long time. several breakdowns were had. just too many different worries all at once. i am Worry Girl. i can't help it.

last saturday i was seriously considering just taking her back to the vet. it's silly looking back now, but at the time it seemed like the best option. i had just spiraled so deep into irrational thinking territory in my head, obsessing over solvable problems and not thinking clearly, not realizing that it would all end up okay in the end and i just needed to give it time. it's been a couple days since that and thankfully i can now look back at the physical list i'd made of all of my then-current cat problems that was driving me insane and go "this one is solved, this one's also fine now, there's progress on this one as well..." i can't believe i even thought about taking her back. that saturday night she was laying on my chest in bed, purring loudly, slower and slower until she fell asleep, with any little movement i made she would open her eyes, immediately start purring again, readjust, and fall back asleep again. i telepathically made a promise to her that night that i wouldn't give up on her that easily. i've been letting her roam around the house freely since then. midnight wasn't happy with this at first, she was scared and hid and ran from room to room and hissed and growled and swatted at tama for a day or two but they've gotten pretty comfortable with each other now. there's still the occasional hiss and a little bop on the head whenever tama gets too close for midnight's comfort, especially while i'm preparing their food at mealtimes, but i've read that this is normal. there's no real fighting so it's okay. they seem to be okay chilling next to each other and it's only getting better with time. they even play every now and then in little ways. i wish i could tell me of a couple days ago to chill out and that it will all turn out okay, that all of her problems will go away with time, but she wouldn't have listened to me. it's okay. this too was a lesson.

my only real regret is texting the woman that had brought tama to the vet in the first place during my breakdown on saturday. i wrote paragraphs and paragraphs to her explaining what i thought were valid reasons on why i needed to take her back to the vet and how sorry i was about it. i did follow it up saying i changed my mind later but she has not responded. maybe it's for the best that she hasn't. as a general rule of thumb, i think it's best to not send any messages written with tears in your eyes. i had more things to talk about but i guess i just had a lot to say about this one topic. during this whole time i had another personal issue that i was dealing with and i want to talk about that as well. a personal issue that i've actually been dealing with for a long time, but that got particularly bad last week with all the stress. i'm leaving it for now because i think it needs its own entry. okay. i think i'll write that AND another separate general update post. this will have to be a three parter. okay okay okay. end of part one. bye for now.