Modern Love

There is a paw at my cheek, nudging before the meowing begins. My eye mask pulls away and takes me from night to dawns early light in a snap. She meows. Persistent and yet, pleased I get up creaky and slowly thinking "I'm 30" as I pat her head and reach for a tshirt. My girl is 12 years old now. She came in the night in the form of a frantic phone call from a friend. "I got a kitten but I'm in DC and can't come home; will you go check on it?" I went, at 17, and broke into my friends house to see about this cat. Tiny and mewing and underweight, my friend had put out hard cat food not even thinking that she was just still too little for it. I scooped her up and she just cried and I knew she would be mine forever. Now, so many years later, I look at her and I just feel better. I'm the single woman with a cat. I'm ok with that.