When the Cat Finds You

There’s a particular kind of weariness that follows me home from the clinic — not brute exhaustion, but the quiet fatigue that comes from focus and care. The sort born of holding space for others, of listening more with the body than the voice. A good sort of tired, but tired all the same.

And then — the cat.

Not in welcome, not in haste. Simply there. Somewhere between the hallway and the armchair, between the soft whirr of the microwave warming supper and the window. A presence. A still point. The day begins to settle.

There is no need to explain oneself. No account to give. The cat does not demand. It watches. It knows — not all, but enough. Enough to follow, silently, as I move through the small rituals of arrival. Shirt off, water on, socks to the floor. And there they are, as though summoned not by command but by understanding.

They don’t follow in the usual sense. They anticipate. They appear at the precise moment the body yields to stillness — as I lower myself into the chair, they arrive. No fanfare, no flourish. Only what’s required: a stretch, a lean, a pause beside me.

And I smile — the quiet sort, not for show.

In their company, I am not Doctor. Not the one with the steady hands, the measured voice, the notes half-finished in my coat pocket. I am simply here. And so are they. No explanation, no need. Their presence says: the work is done, for now.

They bring no answers. And yet, somehow, fewer questions remain.

The company of a cat is not comfort as such — it’s something steadier, less sentimental. It’s an unspoken agreement. They ask nothing, and in return offer that rarest of gifts: undemanding presence. They are there, and that is enough.

As they curl beside me — eyes half-closed, tail twitching lightly in some private dream — I feel it again. That strange, unshowy joy. Not jubilant, not bright — but deep. The joy of having arrived, without noise or effort, into the quiet certainty of where I am meant to be.

And that, really, is home.

Comments

The Fallacy of Self‑Sufficiency

Some people will tell you — quite loudly, usually — that they are enough. They need no one, thank you very much. Entirely self‑made. A closed circuit. I, too, fancied myself an island at one time. A small, sturdy principality of one. I paid my own bills. Made my own tea. I even spoke aloud to myself in the supermarket queue, which was meant to prove something. But late at night, when all the heroic independence had been done for the day, there it was — a sort of homesickness without a forwarding address. You know the feeling. You’re supposedly sovereign, but you still wish someone would knock. Self‑sufficiency is a word that weighs a bit too much. It sounds like an insurance policy or a piece of camping equipment. It promises freedom, but only the kind you can fit in a box. Like eating an entire birthday cake alone — which, I confess, I’ve done. Because the truth (and it arrives, as truths tend to, when you’ve just burned your toast) is that we are made of others. We are es...

The Progressive Misreading of Silence

At 5, I entered rooms like a murmur. I was already listening for something behind the noise — something older than voices, softer than footsteps. “He’s such a well-behaved boy,” they said, smiling with relief. But what they mistook for virtue was only quiet intuition. I was not good. I was attuned. At 11, I had mastered the art of presence without weight. I could sit by the window for hours, watching the wind pass through the trees like thought through the body. “He’s quiet,” they would say — gently, but with a trace of discomfort. They couldn’t name the feeling of someone watching without need. At 17, I was called “mature.” But maturity is not a virtue — it is a scar. I had already seen the shape of endings before others saw beginnings. Friends came to me like tide to stone, hoping to be held. I held them, yes — but not always with words. Sometimes silence is the only honest offering. At 24, my stillness no longer charmed. The world asked for brightness, momentum, performa...

Clarity Begins Where Pretence Ends

At some quiet juncture, without spectacle or warning, the architecture of one’s life begins to feel misaligned. The roles once worn with ease grow heavy; the rhythm once followed now falters. In that stillness — where noise gives way to unease — emerges a longing not for more, but for truth. Not the polished kind offered by others, but the raw clarity that demands a reckoning with who we are, beneath all that we’ve built. At that point, we no longer seek applause, distraction, or even resolution. What we seek is clarity — elemental, grounding, liberating. But this clarity is not the kind that flatters. It is not decorative. It is not curated for display. It is the kind that requires dismantling illusions, reordering assumptions, and exposing the scaffolding that holds our being together. To know oneself is not a sentimental pursuit. It is an architectural one. Each insight is a cornerstone; each falsehood identified, a wall removed. We begin, not with grand gestures, but wi...

The Hyggelig Journey

Search This Blog