Settling in.
What Chips the cat taught me about equanimity.
We got a new cat named Chips. She’s a tortie, and she spent the first two days in our house hissing at us every time we approached her. The internet consoled me with the 3-3-3 rule: a new animal takes 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn the routine, and 3 months to feel at home. On day three, I sat on the floor in our guest bedroom, and she cautiously approached me and let me pet her. Right on schedule.
I try to put myself in Chips’ shoes: she was put into a cat carrier and had to ride in a car for 3 hours, as our friends brought her to us from Houston. When they opened the carrier, she was in a new house (that probably still has traces of our dearly departed Yum Yum), and then her original family seemingly abandoned her. They likely explained the circumstances to her, but it’s unlikely she fully understood. I’m not sure cats understand the concept of moving to a another country or the legal hoops a human would have to jump through to bring a pet into one. For all she knew, she was just left here with these scary strangers for no reason, and now they were rudely trying to touch her.
We’re six weeks in now, and Chips is right at home. My husband bought her two cat trees, positioned so she can see out of the most fun windows, and she’ll sit with us on the couch at night, although she still doesn’t always love to have her peace disturbed with petting. Sometimes I walk by the furniture that she hid behind on Night One and think of the way she hissed and scratched at me when I brought her food closer to her hiding spot. Now, she’ll stretch out so I can rub her belly and takes naps on my husband’s lap during our lazy weekends.
It got me thinking about how often something changes and we spend the first two days absolutely pissed. Desperate to control our environment, finding hiding places, hissing at anyone who comes our way. Sometimes those changes are legitimately bad, and we later believe that we were right to hiss and spit and scratch. And sometimes, things get good and we think we were silly to be so upset. And still other times, a bad thing leads to a good thing, or a good thing to a bad thing. In the moment of change, it’s impossible to judge an outcome that exists far beyond that moment.
And really, it doesn’t matter. Days spent in fear and anger are always wasted days. Even if the outcome you feared most comes to pass, your fear and anger won’t keep it from happening. And if something wonderful comes your way, you’ll miss it.
We kept telling Chips that she fell in the honey pot, but she chose violence—until she didn’t. And when she stopped choosing violence, she found herself surrounded by love.