Cat Shit and Shame Storms

The cat shit on the rug this morning. He shit on the rug because I didn’t scoop out his litter box for two or three days. To be specific, it was just outside his litter box, and most of it was on the mat - which is there exclusively to catch the litter so it isn’t tracked through the whole house – so maybe not the biggest tragedy. But still; I felt the wash of a shame shit storm on the horizon.

One of the ways you can make cats feel more secure and cared for is routinely scooping out their litter box. As in, daily! I know this, and yet I so often fail at doing it. Thus, the shame.

But wait, there’s more! The birdfeeders were empty, which I was aware of before I went to bed, and there was a new bag of seed to open. The recycling hadn’t been dealt with for a couple days, I had no meal plan for the week, (and I can’t trust my own appetite to tell me what to eat for breakfast) the floors already needed vacuuming, and I didn’t wash a dish yesterday so I was going to have to clean up before I could even make myself a cup of coffee. And, perhaps I should have led with this: I over slept. Not, oops I missed the alarm. No, the alarm went of, and I pulled the drapes across the window, and didn’t set another alarm before going back to sleep: like, on purpose.

I am not good at the every day life. I constantly feel like I’m running through quicksand. It seems I am always chasing something, always ten feet behind, or fifteen minutes late, twenty bucks over budget, and thirty pounds over weight. No matter what I do, there is something looming over my head that should have been done yesterday, last week, months ago, years ago…

I really wish I could say, well that’s life, everyone feels that way. But every so often, I catch adulthood by the tail, and for a brief time I am able to keep it all in order, under control and moving, all boxes ticked: shit officially done. Then, all too easily is slips through my fingers again, and I feel like an utter waste of skin for not being able to maintain my own meager life. Like, check it out: I don’t have kids, my husband and I are separated by 700 kilometers - so I don’t have to spend that much time tending to his needs - I don’t have a regular job, or a car, or mortgage payment; I can’t even drive without another licensed driver present; my life is generally in a holding pattern until I can get into school in January. All I realy have to do is look after myself, do a few things around the house, write, and take care of one cat which, hello, took a shit on the rug to remind me, “hey asshole, scoop the frickin’ litter box!”

It isn’t that I believe I lack potential, or that I have absolutely nothing to offer, I just suck at all the administrative and daily tasks of being a functional adult. I CAN do it, but it feels about as natural as watching a whale trying to knit an afghan!  I can be organized, but the process requires my absolute focus, like, “everyone please, be quiet, I’m organizing over here.”

A am not going to lie. I don’t live in a pig sty, things get picked up, vacuumed, dusted, the clothes and bedding get washed, dishes done, errands run…eventually, and I am able to maintain pretty good personal hygiene, but it all feels effortful and fraught. There are people who make it all look effortless, and who don’t make a big deal of that life-skill, but there are definitely people who hold their mastery of the most mundane and repetitive aspects of life up as a measuring stick of goodness, worth, and virtue.

Certainly, our post-industrial society rewards those who are good at crossing every T, coloring inside the lines, and avoiding innovation or aspiration. Meanwhile, I can’t even stay out of judgement long enough to learn what lessons can be learned from those to whom everyday life comes naturally. You know, without melancholia, mood swings, introspection, rumination, and overdosing on shame. I even intellectually understand that I’ve been conditioned to feel this way by billions upon billions of dollars of advertising designed to make me feel like crap so I’ll buy a bigger house, hire a maid, attend self-improvement seminars, or just buy another single use gadget that’s going to save me from drudgery. Instead, of being calmed by this, my mind, which is so good at creating things and understanding the really big concepts about the world around me, is equally good at destroying itself. The result is, I end up feeling like I’m not a very good friend, or partner, or spouse, or employee, or son, or sibling, or even cat parent, and no amount of effort is going to improve that.

I have been working on these issues on my own, and with professionals, for years, and today I am wondering what would happen if I simply gave up. As in; the gardens will get weeded, or not; the bills will get paid, or not; I’ll eat well, exercise and lose weight, or not. It all doesn’t really matter in the long run, and no one really cares if my underwear is neatly folded. (Which it is, thanks to Marie Kondo.)

How would it feel to look myself in the mirror and just say, “well, here it is, warts and all?” Maybe I’m worthy of love and connection, and maybe I am not. Maybe my intrinsic worthiness is none of my business, and it comes instead from something I cannot understand, create, destroy, or control. I just have to keep hoping that the people who love me will be kind enough to continue to do so whether or not I am – or feel – worthy of their love, and also continue to hope that they are patient enough to accept whatever love my selfish, cranky, irresponsible, cynical, wounded, disheveled heart has to give to them in return.

The thing is, I know I am being a self indulgent here, but I can’t help wondering how many other people feel the same, and if, these awful feelings of inadequacy are, dare I say it, normal?