What I know about love

When lockdown started I decided to fly my cat (then just a kitten) home with me from London since I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her in another continent for god knew how long.

I've been back in my childhood home for four months now and I can't imagine how I'd cope if I didn't have her with me. My childhood was not particularly filled with love considering my parents had an arranged marriage and it was made it clear while I was growing up that we were not a family in which feelings were to be discussed. 

This led to me having a profound hesitance of love, dating and serious relationships in my late teens and now early twenties. I don't know heaps about love, but I know that to have a healthy relationship you needed to be able to be open about your feelings. This was something that I had no idea how to do. Still felt a void where I thought someone who loved me should be and because I knew I could never fill it with something steady and honest, I settled on sleeping with strings of random people. 

This went on for a year or so straight until I realized that the void wasn't being completely filled and I still felt shit. So I decided to adopt a small black kitten. I honestly did not think much when I brought her home, just that she'd give me some company when I was alone in an unfamiliar country with nasty flatmates. 

The string of shitty hook ups still continued until almost right before lockdown, but slowly I found myself feeling less shit about myself after the hook ups left. My cat would jump up on my bed after whoever spent the night had left and put her little head on my chest as if to say "it'll be alright, you'll be alright". 

Now that she's here with me she still does the same thing whenever I find myself upset over not being able to speak honestly to my family or I'm just having a down day. 

But I can say one thing, I like myself more now a year after adopting my tiny companion than I did when lockdown started. Even more so than I did a year ago when I just bought her home on the bus.