We have three cat lockets for the cat lovers of the world, but I also have a cat story to tell you. So I’m first going to share with you the top three cat lockets for people who love cats, and then I’ll tell my cat story.
And if we’re honest, if you have a cat you love and a photo of your cat that you love, too, then any locket, whether it’s open, closed, 14k gold, a square or a heart will do. Right???
In the summer of 2022 I walked to a neighbor’s house who does Thai body work from a home studio. I had no idea what it was, but I’d been experiencing back pain long enough that I was willing to give just about anything a try.
About half way through the massage her cat crawled onto my chest and sat. It stayed there for about 15 seconds, long enough for me to run through a series of reactions ranging from “OMG ew get this cat off me” to “Is she gonna get her cat off me??” and ending with a voice that clearly, explicitly said “Your fears are a lie” at which point the cat left.
I’ve been afraid of cats since I was a little kid. My parents had family friends with a cat, and one in particular who had a mean cat. At dinner parties the kids would hang out in the basement while the parents would hang out upstairs, and at this particular house the cat seemed to be in the tub behind the shower curtain every time we’d use the bathroom. In my memory, and my middle sister’s memory, too, the cat would paw open the curtain and hiss at us while we were sitting on the toilet.
Cats have otherwise always loved me, while I’ve otherwise always been afraid of them. They’re drawn to me. They crawl on me and around me, they are attracted to me, magnetically drawn into me, no matter how internally or externally I recoil at their presence. They just freak me out.
By the time I’d booked this Thai body work session I’d been experiencing back pain for long enough that I’d started to consider that perhaps there was a lesson I’d need to learn before this pain would go away. I’d even said that out loud to some friends around a campfire one evening that summer, “It just feels like there is something within this pain that’s trying to teach me something,” I remember saying.
“Your fears are a lie,” the voice said. I’ve never heard a voice like that before, or since. It was just myself, the massage therapist, and the cat in the room, and the cat was on my chest.
“Your fears are a lie.”
I asked the therapist about her cat crawling on me once the session was complete. I told her about the message I heard from - and I know this sounds nutty - the cat, and she said in the hundreds of clients she’s had in her home, her cat has only interacted with two, and I was one of them.
My fears are a lie?
Am I afraid of cats? Is that a real thing or just a fun story I’ve been telling for decades that I’ve started to believe? Am I really afraid of failure? Or am I afraid of success? Or am I actually just afraid of my beautiful life crumbling as my work expands? Or are all of these fears a lie anyway?
My fears might be lying to me.
If a cat sits on your chest while you’re getting a massage, and the massage therapist doesn’t shoo it away, and tells you that her cat really never interacts with humans, and then for the first time in your life you hear “a voice” as though someone says it out loud into your ear, do you consider that perhaps your fears might actually be a lie?
Warmly,
Allyssa