So this year I thought I'd be tricky. I got the carrier out two days early and set it on the floor in the living room. I was hoping that the cats would think it would be a new place to play. Tuesday night after work, I walked into the room and saw Alice hiding inside it. Yes!
Wednesday night, I walked into the living room and saw this:
Even better! The cats only put their favorite toy in places where they've been sleeping. So, I figured Thursday's vet trip would be a piece of cake. Okay, so it wasn't, but at least while the cats were stressed out in the vet's office, they had their favorite toy.
So, as usual, this got me thinking in terms of analogies. Did having the toy there make the trip to the vet any easier? Short of either cat learning to talk, I don't think I'll ever know. It was kind of a safety item, though-- something that reminded them that life could be okay eventually.
What are my safety items? Or my safety routines? What do I do to establish normalcy when life is scary or stressful? When I was packing up my house in Iowa to move here, I slept in a sleeping bag on a foam eggshell mattress for a couple of nights after my bed got loaded in the moving truck. It wasn't ideal, but it was my bed. I put it in the same spot my bed used to be (roughly), and the cats slept on the exact corner they always sleep on when the bed's there. I took a picture because I thought it was funny. (Sorry, no electronic version of the picture, and I can't figure out my scanner.)
Now it's got me thinking about how much I want my life to be regular and predictable and what I do to make it feel that way. I think we all crave routines. I think I crave them even more because I don't have some of the routines I used to always rely on. Dinner time, for example, happens much later than I would like because I teach evening classes. Teaching seminary requires me to sleep less than I would like. I have a feeling that if I were in the middle of a tornado aftermath, with my house in shambles around me, I would still be trying to find some kind of routine-- maybe I would be stacking remants of books together or trying to set up furniture fragments and items sort of where they used to be.
What would be my comfort item in the carrier? Chocolate? Nah, too easy and predictable. Scriptures? Well, yeah. My favorite pillow? The throw I always use for naps?
What are YOUR comfort items?
4 comments:
Good question. I'm gonna have to think 'bout that.
My pillow and my fleece blanket which has the words "Ho ho ho" printed all over it...Lincoln gave it to me for Christmas a while back, so the "ho" part was not an intentional insult. (Though Steve almost bought me socks to match, but decided against it for that very reason.)
I'm glad Lincoln didn't get the reference, Jenn. Whew!
Interesting question. I intentionally kept my first three babies from ever getting attached to a blanket, stuffed animal, etc. because I feared the day it would go missing and all chaos would break loose. However, there were days (nights) I wished for one simple comfort item I could have just handed over to pacify them. My fourth now has both -- a favorite blanky and stuffed frog. So far we haven't lost them (whew!) and for now I enjoy seeing how pleased he is to have them with him at certain times of the day. Hmmm, what are my comfort items? I'm wondering if I've kept myself from having any, as well. Maybe it's time to get some?!! (How about ice cream in bad weather?)
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