I Don't Believe in Signs

Tuesday, Nov 11, 2014

For the better part of a decade or more, I've been carrying around on my keychain a single charm. It looks like a mini-license plate and says "I love my cat" with a heart where the word 'love' is. The rest of the printing, the part that made it look like a mini license plate, has long since rubbed off, but the "I love my cat" part was engraved into it, so that part endured all these years.

I remember very distinctly standing in front of the display, choosing the one I would get. There were lots and lots of different sayings on the plates; names (but not mine--they never have mine), professions, like "doctor", and other "I 'heart'" stuff. There were two cat ones. "I love my cat" and "I love my cats".

I remember thinking that I never intended to have multiple cats again, and I only had the one now (Pippin) so I should get the one that said "I love my cat."

My memories are usually rather vague and fuzzy (even when a cat isn't in them) and are one of the reasons for this blog--it's to help me remember what happened. The only reason I know the Retrospective tales is because I've told those tales many times to many different people. And sometimes a photograph will jog my memory. So it's interesting to me how distinct my memory is of choosing this charm.

Today the corner broke, opening the hole that let me keep it on my keychain, and it fell into my hand. I could tuck it into my scrapbook-photo album, but I can never keep it on my keychain again.

Today, when I'm less than eight weeks away from having a multiple cat household for the first time in fifteen years.

I really don't believe in mystic signs.

Really I don't.