Maybe the World is Beautiful and Worth Fighting For
On a chance encounter with a new friend over...cats
Last night, I was feeding a family of stray cats and my neighbor comes out, on her way to Target to return a humidifier, and we engage in some banal chit chat about the cats, how we love animals, how it pains us so many of them suffer and how our Airbnb host wants to spread poison on the property to kill them.
And then I did the thing I normally don’t do. I walked over to her home and we spoke until it grew cool and dark. She works for the UN and I don’t know what I do. She’s 36. I’m 47. And yet, we’re in the same place.
We’re both on the spectrum. We both suffer from severe clinical depression. And at one point she begins to weep because I’m the first woman she’s met who’s admitted to having autism and being diagnosed later in life.
Finally, she says, I don’t feel so alone.
I don’t cry because that’s how I’m built. I’m a wall. Impenetrable. But I tell her it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel joy in what we share.
We talk of being devoid of purpose because in order to live we have to wake every morning to make money. We schedule time for joy. We squeeze in the art we make. We don’t understand how Los Angeles can be teeming with 80,000 homeless people while people drop a grand on groceries at Erewhon or complain about not finding a spot to charge their Teslas.
She says, the homeless should be a state of emergency and it’s not. Why? To which I respond, simple. Greed.
People love to spout the violently unhealthy “do what you love” platitude. Well. If I truly did what I loved, I would be going to culinary school. I would spend more time making art because the world needs it even though we’re told differently. I would travel more. Live more. Rest more.
But the reality is I have student loan debt, tax debt, rent and groceries that are ludicrously expensive for a single person. The reality is I’m taking my cat to the vet tomorrow because something is truly wrong with him and that forces me to make tough choices.
What do I give up? What do I sacrifice?
My neighbor’s husband works a minimum wage job while her salary pays their bills and they struggle.
We wonder where we could live. Is there a place that exists where we could simply be? Where we can discard wants like an ill-fitted suit we’re desperate to shed?
And will the rest of our waking life be like this? Exist to pay bills, subsist, only to slouch to an open grave. She says this aloud and apologizes for being “existential.” I tell her she’s saying the thing most of us think but are terrified to say out loud.
This may sound sad to you. Possibly because many won’t get it. But I walked away feeling good, whole. Because I’m not crazy. Someone else gets it. Someone doesn’t make me feel weird for who I am. For being different. And she tells me she feels the same way too.
We talk about having dinner, tea. She tells me she prefers texting. I tell her I hate phone calls and being around most people. And she nods and says me too. But sometimes it gets lonely and maybe we can fill that space with one another.
Maybe, once in a while, we can feel less alone.
All this started because we both care about the family of cats in our shared garden.
Often, I say people are terrible because they are. I’m proven right time and time and so many times again. But there are a handful, a beautiful, fragile few, who make you realize there’s something worth fighting for.
Find your people, your person. Hold onto them for as long as you can.
I sell clothes. Everywhere apparently.
You were seen by your new friend, and vice versa. It's a beautiful thing when that happens. Cats -- powerful creatures, those. Been thinking about you; glad to see this pop up in my emails.
I feel the same. I think that many if not most people do, but can't admit it. Glad you've found a kindred spirit in real life!