I don’t always want to stay.
I am a kitten, and a kitten can often be skittish. A kitten wants to be loved, yes, but doesn’t always know how to ask for it or find it. I am, indeed, one of the lucky ones.
Why do I stay? I stay because of little moments like tonight. When one of my loved ones sat there, barely even trying to hold back the tears, and all she wanted was to be held from all sides. To feel safe, protected, and understood. Something she has felt all too little of the last few years.
So I stay.
I stay in my lovely little home (despite my inability to sit still for very long, ever, even wrapped beneath blankets I move about) because I feel loved, yes, but also because I have a purpose. For her, for everyone I’m able to give that reassuring hug that says, “You may not be okay right now, but you are okay and you’ll feel this way soon enough. If not today or tomorrow. But you will get there again.”
If my only purpose, ever, is to make someone feel safe and loved in a single moment, or series of moments, that is enough for me to feel valuable.
