My Cats Aren’t Cats

Foreward: I wrote this post a long time ago, but for whatever reason, I never posted it. I post it now in memory of our beautiful boy cat, Orion, whom we lost last week.

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My cats aren’t cats. I know it might sound strange, but they aren’t cats to me. They’re fluffy little individuals with catlike behaviors. That’s how I see them.

If I go to someone’s house, and they have a cat, I recognize that it’s a cat. I see it as a cat and really notice just how catlike the creature is.

It’s different with mine. It’s like instead of just seeing their physical form, when I look at them I also “see” who they are, “see” their personalities.

So, instead of seeing two cats, I see individuals. They aren’t cats anymore. They are Aurorie and Orion.

I think the same type of thing happens with people, as well. We start off seeing people as “people”, a collective, and as we get to know someone they become individuals to us. We look at them and what we know of their personalities sits like a veil over them. Like we’re looking through their personality to see the physical form.

This phenomenon of perspective is way more pronounced with pets, though. I think that’s because we are human, so it’s easier to identify with other humans from the get go.

I also think that this is what people are describing when they say their pet is a part is the family. It may not be human, but it’s just as much of an individual, with its own likes and dislikes, its own habits and quirks, as a human family member.

I love my fuzzy little “kids.” (: