I came home yes­ter­day with a note on my desk, and it said that Dolly was being tak­en for a walk.

My first reac­tion was dis­be­lief. I could­n’t under­stand how some­one could just take my cat for a walk. I was beside myself with shock. I felt vio­lat­ed. I felt insult­ed. I felt ter­ri­ble.

I had­n’t walked Dolly yet, for sev­er­al rea­sons. First of all, I did­n’t have her microchipped, so any chance that she gets away would be dev­as­tat­ing. Secondly, I had­n’t decid­ed whether I should take her out yet, since she might miss being out­side too much after her first time. That was a big deci­sion for me, one that I had­n’t made yet, but one which was made for me.

The most impor­tant point is that Dolly had her first walk with­out me. I was­n’t there to see how she reacts with the world, I was­n’t able to be the first per­son to let her out­side.

I stood in my room for ten min­utes in dis­be­lief. I could­n’t even wrap my head around how some­one could do such a thing, to walk into my home and vio­late my feel­ings in such a way. I put on my head­phones, put on my fuck off playlist, and sat under my desk, shak­ing my head. This was the most offen­sive thing any­one has ever done to me in my life.

When the real­iza­tion that there was no oth­er first walk sunk in, I start­ed to sob. The shock segued into depres­sion, and I slumped onto the ground, pulling my hair, still in dis­be­lief. I cried for a good while, some­thing I haven’t done for eight or nine years. I cried so hard that my tear ducts felt like they were being sucked of their flu­ids and the walls were start­ing to touch each oth­er. By the end of it, my eyes had the old famil­iar swollen feel­ing, and I was exhaust­ed. I show­ered and tried to wash the mucus from my hair.

The whole sit­u­a­tion has made me more ful­ly under­stand how much I care about Dolly. I already knew how much I cared about her, and I appre­ci­at­ed her before, but I nev­er real­ized the extent of it until now. I don’t see her as a pet. I see her as a child.

It’s also made me think about the nature of good and bad, and how much of a bal­ance there is. I nev­er real­ly believed that either exist­ed, since one bad thing gen­er­al­ly spawns a good thing, such as mur­der help­ing to con­trol over­pop­u­la­tion, or geno­cide lead­ing to beau­ti­ful art/culture. Of course, I’ve nev­er been through either, so my thoughts are quite lim­it­ed.

I just can’t see the good in this sit­u­a­tion. I can’t see how this can be any­thing but bad. I haven’t learned any­thing from this, one of the only pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for it hap­pen­ing, and I have lost even more faith in human­i­ty.

Seeing the good in this would be healthy for me.