A small taste of future worries.

Every time I drove in the driveway, I held my breath, thinking "She'll be home." Every time I wandered near a window, I'd look outside and think "Maybe she's walking in now." I was envisioning all sorts of horrible catastrophes, but I was trying to be optimistic and telling myself she had just wandered off and got lost. However, despite my attempts at optimism, when I was scooping out her poop I was morbidly thinking "This might be the last of her I'll ever see." Even Juliette wasn't very optimistic; when I announced that she was missing, Juliette replied unemotionally "Maybe she's dead."

But then… sometime during the night she showed up. I woke to the sound of her purring in my ear.

I am talking about the cat, of course. Tasha disappeared for a full 24 hours and came home again as if nothing was amiss. Tasha is my favorite of the cats, even though I was the one who initially picked Piper. I was upset that she had disappeared, and upset that it was the cute cuddly perfectly litter trained wormless one that had disappeared, not the other equally cute and cuddly but not so perfectly litter trained worm filled cat.

She is now perched on top of the couch, content and drowsy. She ran out the door this morning and I almost ran after her to bring her back, fearful that she'd disappear again; but she came back five minutes later. Then I was thinking about it, and I realized I need to chill out a bit. If I am this preoccupied and worried about the cat, what am I going to be like when my girls are a bit older and going out and missing curfews? A nervous wreck, that's what. Thank goodness there are a few years yet before I have to add that to my list of worries. I have enough to deal with right now!