The Virginity Project

Gone but not forgotten

Almost exactly two years ago, I set off in my trusty car to interview my ninety one year old aunt in Cornwall. Interviewing people about the loss of virginity is one thing, asking your elderly aunt to tell you about the first time she had penetrative sex is another. This didn’t phase me. I was on a mission. I wanted this story.

When I had my road to Damascus moment on a beach in California a few years ago, it was the historical angle of this project that first got me going. We live in a unique country. Could I reflect that by knitting together the stories of the people that live in it?

I could hardly wait to find out. Months went by and I got a few stories under my belt but I couldn’t push past the age of sixty five. The truth was that I didn’t know that many people who were really old. Now, back in the day it was a different story.

I spent some of my twenties working with Alzheimer’s patients. This is not an exclusively ‘elderly’ disease, but in my case, these were all octogenarians. I rushed my daily duties to get to the floor and sit with the old folk. They had stories like you wouldn’t believe, admittedly ones they would repeat on a regular basis but I didn’t care. They were stories worth telling once, twice, or even three times at a sitting.

That was then, this was now. Contacts were long gone and grandparents had all departed. Except for Aunty Betty. No matter that we were not related by blood – she married my grandmother’s brother in 1940. She was, by a long shot, one of the most popular members of my family. Loved and respected in equal measures by my grandmother and her four daughters – one of whom is my mother.

A couple of phone calls was all it took and several weeks later, on a sunny morning, me and my mother leapt, Starsky and Hutch style into my Renault five to drive south. That’s not quite true. In a strange reversal of roles, I started the car and asked my mother the following question. ‘Where’s your coat?’

‘Oh’, she giggled with a daft look on her face, ‘I forgot it!’ Well you better un-forget it because it’s not gonna be warm where we’re going.

It wasn’t, but it was wild and it was beautiful and it felt great to escape the city despite nagging doubts at what we were about to do. But Aunty Betty had agreed to this and it wasn’t a surprise. She was universally known as a good sport, a game bird, the person who would always say what everyone else was thinking. She didn’t pull her punches. She was also as sharp as a pin.

‘I’ve got one foot on a banana skin and the other in the grave’. That had been her answer that morning when her hairdresser enquired after her health. She seemed pleased with that response as she swayed precariously, like a giant with stiff legs, across a sea of carpet, taking hold of trinket-laden tables and sideboards as she went.

She sunk into a grateful chair and we sat drinking cups of tea and eating cakes. What else to do with a surrogate granny? How I miss those days. I don’t look back much, but if I could go anywhere, it would be back to my grandmother’s house and her undivided attention over a game of Halma. No siblings, no parents, just me, my granny and a board game. Tea on a tray followed and the comfort of a tucked up bed. What’s not to love?

We can’t rekindle the past but we can make the most of the present. As I pushed the button on the tape player and Aunty Betty began to speak, I realised that this was more than a story. This was the documentation of the past that made all our presents possible. My grandmother had had seven brothers. All of them now dead. Aunty Betty was the last person who would ever be able to tell us about these people – and the act that produced a cousin for my mother.

‘On the first night I might tell you, I thought this is much ado about nothing. But then I got to like it.’

She only ever had one child but she probably had quite a lot of sex. She may have come from the dark ages but that never stopped this lady from living her life to the max. Uncle Teddie had been in the air force. Long after we got past the sex talk and the tape had stopped rolling, my great aunt dropped the real clanger.

‘What were you and Uncle Teddie doing in Germany after the war?’ My mother asked her.

‘Oh, we were spying dear’.

Of course you were. Silly us. There followed facts that I won’t publish here. Years might have passed but I know that the publication of such details would give my mother the complete and utter willies. Let’s just say that the ‘activity’ involved a camera, a lot of ‘picnics’ and a proud young couple taking pictures of their first born outside a selection of prominent German buildings.

My mother might be spooked but my aunt wouldn’t have given two hoots. Mainly because within six weeks of this interview taking place, she passed away. I believe that she knew she was going to die. If I was conscious of this chance to document detail, she was more so. That’s partly why she agreed to take part but it was something else too. I think it gave her a last chance to review a fabulously happy marriage.

‘The whole point about marriage is that you grow into a deep friendship. You grow older together and you become deeper friends. Teddie and I were very deep. We were very good friends.’

He was the bomber pilot, brave but sensitive. A man who suffered with stomach problems for the whole of his life, because despite the pride he took in his wartime role, he never got over the thought of the lives he crushed during night time raids over German soil. Women, children, people just like you and I. He was the dashing uncle that my aunts all loved and she, the charismatic young woman that he chose for his wife. Friendship, she opined, was the key to their success.

I had no idea of how many roads, physical and otherwise, I would travel with this project. I have seen life – mainly other people’s, at its best and its worst, and all through the telling of stories. This is the real deal. This is what makes me me and you you.

But I am just a piece of the jigsaw, a patch in the quilt of this life. And so are you. Go out there and ask your people to tell you stories. Do it before its too late. Because no matter how many sophisticated forms of communication we devise, when the old die, the past goes with them. Document it today.

Tori – Part Two

Discovering that true intimacy means being mentally naked – just as much as it involves the physical shedding of clothes was one of the great revelations of my life. Perhaps that is why this story resonates and also why, after all the wonderful stories I have been sent, this is an all time favourite.

Some of us spend years searching for someone we can be naked with. Tori has gone in at the top. Ok, soul searching was involved, religion had its say too but she got there in the end. I don’t think I am ruining the story by telling you that it was worth the wait.

The moment….

We joke that sex was my twentieth birthday present. It was actually a month and a day after that we had sex, but it was around my birthday that we set about exploring in earnest.

I'm not sure what changed. I knew from the beginning that if things worked out between G and I, we would have sex at some point. I worried about timing, about starting this before we were sure that I could cope with being in a relationship with him, let alone sex. But I woke up on my birthday, and, without fanfare or angst, it seemed right. Now was as good a time as any. I spent a large part of my twentieth birthday learning to give a hand job. It was only when someone rang me at four in the afternoon that I remembered that it was in fact my birthday.

I had never been touched before. I was - am still - very tense. At first, what should have been pleasure responses registered as pain. All the sensitive nerves in my vulva exploded in sharp stabbing fire. He was so gentle and patient with me, backing off until I was ready to try again. Time, patience, and the pleasure responses balanced out the pain. G encouraged me to touch myself before he attempted to finger me. He lay there and coaxed me and encouraged me and reminded me that there was no way to get it wrong, as long as it felt good.

I relaxed enough that he could slide his finger inside of me. The muscles around the outside were tight and painful, but inside... I had no idea of what to expect and was overwhelmed. I tried to curl up into a ball around these new sensations and cried ‘what is this, what is this?’ Those first few times, even before the pain receded, were the most intense. I had no time to worry about what was going to happen next, I lost myself in the moment. I didn't notice when my hymen broke because - for the first time, that day, there was no pain at all when he touched me.

We stuck with that for a while. As a matter of honour, he maintained that we were going no further before the end of semester, when I would have a chance to catch my breath and make sure everything was ok. Everything was ok. The half-expected reality check never happened. Neither of us came to our senses and recovered from our insanity.

Sex itself took several false starts. The first try, I freaked out at the last moment. G had apparently expected this, but I was confused and taken aback. For a large part, at that point I just wanted to get past the first time, to have it out of the way so that I didn't have to worry about the unknown. But that unknown scared me enough that I just couldn't do it.

I don't know what was different the next time but we started messing around a bit with different positions, on the basis that if we were going to have false starts we might as well have some variety to them. Somewhere, one of them worked.

We had to stop and start again a bit the first time. I remember feeling mostly confused, having to process a bunch of new sensations. The physical intimacy, the discomfort, new and (mostly) good feelings. It hurt - even now, a month or so later, the moment of penetration is still uncomfortable for me, but I didn't care. We had sex again quite soon afterwards, this time with me on top. It was that second time that the whole sex thing clicked for me. G tells me I had my mouth hanging open in a most unladylike manner, as I lost track of everything around me, even him beneath me.

When I came back to earth I freaked out a little, surprised by the intensity that had taken me. G gave me space to myself for a while and I sat on his stairs while he pottered around, and took stock. I think I had to make sure that I hadn't in fact lost anything, that I was still the same person. Which I was, and am. Virginity loss hasn't changed a lot of things. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time; I'm still getting comfortable with myself, and sex - and G. I'm still easily overwhelmed or frightened by it all.

That's ok, though, because this isn't really about first time sex. It's about G, and I, and having a relationship and sex, which is loving and safe and honouring to both of us. Which also happens to be awesome sex. Even when it's Bad Sex, when we're uncoordinated and tired and nothing quite works, it's still awesome - gentle and tender and patient and funny. It doesn't matter how long it takes to work it all out - right now it feels like we have all the time in the world.

I have been so incredibly lucky to find G. People spend half their lives reading chick lit and waiting for something like this to come along. This is the sort of relationship the True Love Waits society tells you is 'worth the wait'. And it is, no arguments. If I thought they were right, that premarital abstinence was the only way to have a relationship like this, I'd sign the card right away. Clearly, their prescribed method of achieving this isn't the only route, though. It doesn't matter if G and I are only together for a year, or three or thirty. What matters is that it is true and honest and loving, right now.

I'd like to say this is all I've ever hoped for, but to be honest this is nothing like what I'd hoped for. I've been a cynical person, with little tolerance for pipe dreams, regardless of whether it's chick lit or the church who are offering them. If I expected anything at all, it was a comfortable friendship which would drift slowly into a relationship and commitment. Somewhere along the line there'd be sex. But G happened along, and all I can say is that if I ever settle for second best, I'll know what I'm missing.

Afterwards

‘I just wonder’, you asked me Kate, ‘if real love is that much of a strong emotion that it forces us - albeit in a very pleasant way, to re-assess everything we thought we knew’...?

‘Real Love’ has caused me to reassess many things. Not the things I thought I knew, but the things I worried about not knowing. How would I know when I found ‘a sexual relationship which enriches you as an individual’? What, exactly, did that consist of? What would it look like?

Maybe, had G. and I not had this silly instant connection, all those questions would still be difficult. But I knew this in the same way that I knew I loved him. I knew it, because I knew it. I can't describe how I know it, but hopefully I have described to others what that knowledge feels like.

To return to ‘losing’ my virginity. They tell you that your virginity is the greatest gift you can give your partner, but I cannot feel that I have given away anything. Oh, G. is damn special, and has every reason to feel so, but there are many things I have given him – love, trust and instruction on the fine art of constructing a paragraph.

When it comes to sex, it is he who has given, and I who have received. G. turned up in my life and gave me a safe space in which to explore. He gave me no pressure, and no boundaries to fear. I had slammed the door shut on an uncontrolled wilderness that I could not understand. G. turned that into a room full of playpen balls and told me I could do what I liked with them.

In twenty years time, my virginity will be only a memory, but G has given me something which will last my lifetime: my body, all wrapped up with a metaphorical bow on it, and a free demonstration, of the ‘look what it can do’ variety. I still have a lot to learn, a lot to explore... but I'm not doing it alone.

Tori

I probably should save this post for Valentines Day, but heck, I can’t wait.

On the surface of things, this might appear to be a story about religion and how it affects the choices that people make. But I disagree. This is a story about love and how it affects the choices that people make.

Tori may be a Christian - or a vegetarian - or possibly even a two headed, purple-spotted alien, but it makes no difference. This is a woman who knows that she wants something - she isn’t sure what that something is but she is prepared to wait until she finds it.

I may not be religious in the traditional sense but even I had to say, ‘Tori, I believe that God would think you were a nutcase if you had passed up this chance’.

Love doesn’t come along every day. Grab it while you can.

The background…

‘You, my love, are no longer a virgin’, he says to me, his eyes wavering from my face to the bloody finger he has pulled out of me. I must look worried, because he smiles. In the medieval sense, that is.

For some reason I feel bereft. I can't understand it. The hymen has no inherent value. I didn't even know where it was, or if I still had one. But now it's gone and I can't get it back. I feel exposed. I curl onto my side and hide in sleep. His arms are still around me when I wake.

Last month I had sex for the first time. We had sex for the first time together. And the second and the third and then I lost count. I can be a little single-minded when I discover a New Thing. Fortunately, G seems to find this both adorable and flattering, so everyone is happy.

The terminology surrounding virginity is flawed. We talk about losing virginity, or giving it away. G prefers sharing, which I have to say is a much better term, but it still doesn't quite express what I am feeling. I have not lost anything, or given anything away. I am in no way less. If I lost anything, it was at that point, weeks ago, when my hymen broke courtesy of ‘outercourse’. I was overwhelmed, and inexplicably shaken up and I came home and wrote the little word sketch above. Something I had never been aware of was gone. But that loss did not mean I was no longer a virgin. It was merely a step, a stage in the journey.

G and I fell head over heels for each other. I met him four months ago and in a stroke of rather embarrassing irony, I noticed him at first only because he was with his very striking girlfriend. For some time, I remembered him only as the-guy-who's-dating-Striking-Girl. He came along to an extra-curricular group I'm in, and he and Striking Girlfriend started hanging out. G and I must have had a few conversations, nothing memorable, but during which we found out two facts which have since become a very interesting factor in our relationship: he is a vocal, steadfast and often angry atheist, and I a committed, though respectably left-wing Christian.

At some point I found out that Striking Girlfriend had gone away for a few weeks and G was feeling deprived of social interaction. I decided, out of the goodness of my heart, that we should take him under our wing and provide him with social interaction while she was away.

Weeks went past in a blur of late-night conversations. I found that I could talk to G candidly about my faith, which is very unusual. I don't talk about faith - theology, yes, but not the more personal side of it. Have you ever met someone and almost instantly known them? Fallen into them? The kind of instant connection that powers the chick flick industry? He walked into my life and I instantly trusted him.

The point when I realised that I couldn't think of anything that I would not be able to talk about with G was the point I realised that I could have sex with him. I found myself on the telephone to him at some weird hour of the night, telling him the story I had wanted to tell you when I last wrote. I mentioned then that abstinence education did nothing to prepare me for that confusing state of being, when your body and mind both want someone desperately, and yet both are overloaded with new sensations and desperately want out.

That was where I had ended up with my last partner - a state of total confusion. I thought that writing to you might help, but I was unable to put in words what was bothering me. Anyway, here I was talking to G, and it all came spilling out. This is the kind of person I want to sleep with announced my brain. Which was a little scary, given that he was still technically taken at the time and I was doing a great job of convincing myself I wasn't interested in him anyway.

Things kind of cart wheeled out of control; I realised I was interested in him about five minutes before a bunch of friends ambushed me and pointed out that I was glowing in his presence. For reasons that aren't any of my business, and which I take on trust were not directly related to me, G and Striking Girlfriend broke up.

Much angst ensued as he sorted out various things in his life. Somewhere in there, a friend of mine, prone to thinking she knows everything about everyone - and sadly she often does - announced that if I dated G, I would end up sleeping with him. I remember laughing, because at that point it didn't look like we'd get the chance to get that far. But the idea itself didn't bother me; I simply accepted it as true.

My partner before G was the first time I had experienced real desire and it had scared me. I didn't know what I was feeling, or how to deal with it. That particular relationship tailed off, which was all for the better, but I remained confused. I had caught a sideways glimpse of the vast unexplored territory within, and I didn't know what to do about it. The door didn't fit back quite as well as it had.

It was at this point that I first wrote to you. It helped, a great deal, because I was able to pin down a few basic principles. But what I really wanted to say, to someone – anyone - was that I was scared. The idea that I might have sex, the feeling of having to make sexual choices, was suddenly in my life, and no one, not my family nor my friends nor my church, was giving any classes on making those decisions, at least not to nineteen year olds who are, for all intents and purposes, adults. It wasn't until I met G, and found myself able to be completely open with him, that I found someone to say that to.

‘You get to make the decisions’, he maintains. This could be just typical male abrogation of responsibility, but I prefer to think he's being Gentlemanly. We took things as I was ready for them. There was that first kiss, which slid into making out, which slid into sleeping - actually sleeping - together. One of the nicest things you can do with another person is simply to curl up in one another's arms without any question of sex. People look at me funny (or used to), when I'd say that I wasn't having sex, and meanwhile I had my boyfriends stay over without batting an eyelid. But for my part, I've always known I couldn't have sex with someone without knowing that I trusted them enough to sleep by their side.

Next I learnt to recognise the expression on G's face that goes with a particularly delicious thought. At first, he was reluctant to tell me about them, assuming - reasonably enough - that it would squick me out to hear that he'd started daydreaming about how I might taste or some such. I expected me to be squicked out by these things. Instead, I found myself amused by his embarrassment and neutral about the mental images produced.

Then they would sneak up on me a few days later and part of my brain would go ‘hmmm... that could be fun.’ Once I'd noticed that this was a recurring pattern, I explained to G. that it was his duty to contribute to my store of mental images, since I lacked the experience or the sexual imagination to come up with many for myself. This duty he took upon himself without complaint, with the result that everything we've done so far, I've had plenty of time to think and talk about in advance. And we still have a store of these mental images to explore when we get the chance.

....to be continued – tomorrow....

Happy Sunday....

Its always a good day when one wakes up to find this type of email in one’s inbox. These are the moments that The Virginity Project lives for. Here it is…

‘Hi Kate.

In July, I wrote to you with some thoughts on sex, virginity and faith. You published it on your blog. Well, I'm now twenty and my life has been turned upside down. I have met a flaming atheist and fallen madly in love. I intend to sleep with him. In fact, I am in the process of losing my virginity to him right now and it is utterly unexpected - but delightful.

If you're interested, I can write you a reflection or two during this fascinating process. My outlook has changed quite a lot and having made a public statement, I feel I ought to make it again, with more practical evidence this time.'

Tori*

Am I interested? Er…just a bit. Last summer, ‘Tori’ wrote to explain her thoughts and feelings on the subject of virginity loss. Specifically hers. Tori is a committed Christian. Allow me to refresh your memory…

‘My choices about sex are religious choices, however, they are also personal, emotional and practical choices. I handed my virginity pledge in blank, because I object to that sort of manipulation and because I didn't feel like I was in any position to make that decision as a never been kissed fourteen year old.

I am single right now, but I have chosen in my relationships not to have sexual intercourse, and also not to engage in some of the many intimate forms of ‘outercourse’ (what a great word!). I intend to continue in ‘abstinence’, (also a problem word for me), perhaps until marriage and certainly until I find myself in a committed adult relationship with a long-term future.’

That time has come. Life has taken a turn for the unexpected. Better still, Tori intends to share it with us. Watch this space. I am editing as fast as my fingers will allow me!

* All names changed to protect identity

Turkish delight?

Your stories

Some months ago I performed what I can only describe as ‘speed interviewing’. Via my blog, a man got in touch. He wanted to tell me about his first time. I was delighted because it involved a prostitute - a story I had been seeking for some time.

He was busy and so was I but in between the birth of children – (his), and a busy workload, (mine), he raced down to London and as we huddled behind the glass doors of my agency meeting room, he told me and my tape recorder all about his first time. It was just the tale I wanted to hear.

The word ‘prostitute’ has negative connotations but there was nothing negative about this story. It was full of bravery and hope. He painted a visceral picture of the confidence this experience gave him. His first ‘non-paying’ experience followed swiftly afterwards.

Fast-forward and here is the other side of the coin. A dark little tale from my new correspondent in Turkey. Two different stories, two different cultures. Even though, as Zeki* tells it, ‘everyone in Turkey wants to live like celebrities do’. Sound familiar?

Zeki. Born 1979. Lost virginity aged 15

‘I'd like to tell you how I lost my virginity. I was exactly fifteen years old when I lost it. Me and one of my friends used to hear about prostitute house here in Turkey and one day we decided to visit there but we didn’t intend to have sex because we were shy but we suddenly decided to have sex because we had no gfs. It was the most excited moment of our lives. That’s all I can tell you,
Take care’

What, I replied, was a gfs?

‘Hi Kate, ‘gfs’ means girlfriends. I meant in the past, not many people could be in relationships because of some district rules by family. In the past times of Turkey, when you have a GF, you have to hide it from her family and if you take her virginity you got a big trouble because you had to marry her in the end!

That’s why my generation used to go to prostitute houses to pay and have sex! But I must tell you one of my friends story about this house. The women who work in prostitute house usually behave the men in a very bad way during sex. They force you to finish as quickly as you can even though you are paying.

One of my friend was very shy and attempted to have sex with a woman and she behaved him in a shit way. She said, ‘You got a lil dick and if you marry someone you will never ever be able to make your wife happy’. In the end, he couldn’t forget this years. He never told this story to any of his friends and he decided to go to prostitute house and kill the woman who told him those things. He injured her very badly with a knife. We read about it in the newspapers.

But now Turkey is definitely different. Everything is changing, especially relationships. The people don’t need marriage to have sex and in my opinion, the reason is that TV changes people’s life style. Everyone wants to live like celebrities do. Turkish people want to live in richness so much! It’s everyone’s dream here except me. All I need is a happy life, not a rich life. Money is nothing if you can’t find happiness.

Maybe you have some clues why I always have regret for losing my virginity with a prostitute. Do you know I haven’t done any sexual things with someone for five years? You should be able to guess how hard it is for a man but I have a promise to myself. I won’t have sex till I find the right person. I want to feel like a virgin again.

We will see at the end of the day. Sorry I gotta end here as I am very sleepy Kat.’

*All names changed to protect identity.

This is not a cat blog…

‘Oh yes it is….’
‘Oh noooo it’s not….’
‘Oh yes it IS….’
‘Oh nooooo it’s NOT…’

It’s just that my life isn’t all about virginity loss. Particularly at this time of year. As my eyes go slowly square and my stomach gently rounds, my life revolves around re-runs of ‘Batteries Not Included’ (love it), ‘Titanic’ (love it more), and ‘Mission Impossible’ (not bothered). I also enjoy the odd trip to the vets. Not the money aspect. Nope, I could do without a whopping seventy-five pound bill but it is almost worth it for the pantomime performance that is….the local vets.

There is little point in trying to get away with a dull trip. It simply doesn’t happen. There’s too much going on. The pets that look like people! The drama! The embarrassing accidents! If you want to learn anything about life, death, and frequently yourself, just go and hang out at your local veterinarian’s. My most recent visit is a case in point.

It was the Saturday morning before Christmas and on the face of it, I was there for an annual ‘booster’ injection. In reality it is just a very expensive manicure for a cat with stupidly sharp claws. ‘Shall I give his nails a little clip while he’s here?’ Ben always says.

I’d like to see you try, I think to myself as three staff members attempt to wrestle six kilos of angry cat to the ground and curtail those claws. It never happens. He didn’t earn the name Edward Scissorhands for nothing. Hey ho, all this was all to come as I seated myself next to a gentleman of eastern European extraction. I know this because he was talking to his tall son in a Russian accent.

‘Go. Go. Fetch coffee. I will be fine here’, he said as the young man bent to fit his frame through a door that now looked like something from Alice in Wonderland and set forth into the day. Portly, rain-coated and elderly, my new neighbour now bent down to fuss with the contents of his basket. He didn’t look like a pet owner and that’s what I love about the vet’s. I love the way that the most innocuous looking characters, people that would normally cut you up in their cars or jump the bus queue are reduced to a big sappy heap of sentimentality when it comes to their pets.

Today was no exception. A long low bleat came from below as the old man extracted an equally old cat from a white wire basket. The noise was patient but persistent. ‘I don’t feel well’, it seemed to say. ‘I really wouldn’t bother making all this fuss if I felt fine’.

‘There now Mushi’, said the man as he hugged a tattered old cat to his chest. ‘Don’t worry now. Everything will be ok.’ One look at Mushi told me this wasn’t the case. I am no expert, but a cat with a tongue slung sideways out of its mouth is not in good shape. Mushi might be ‘going home’, but not to the one he arrived from.

Slowly my heart began to crack in two. ‘Come back here Son’, I thought. ‘Why did you leave your father to fetch coffee? Come back and help. You’re young. He’s old. Mushi is all he has’. I pictured the old man leaving the vets with an empty basket and I slunk further down into my seat. I wonder if the man lives near his son or is Mushi the only real friend he has in the world?

The call came. ‘Mr Ivanov, you can bring Mushi through now’. No one said a word but the silence said it all. Eyes flickered familiar thoughts around the room. This is the day that every pet owner dreads. Let it be when we are young and fit, not old and lonely. Let it be quick and painless, not drawn out and dramatic. Some time later, a tear stained assistant emerged from the room.

Not long after, my less theatrical turn arrived. As the staff fought to ‘organize’ my spitting companion, I asked the vet, ‘How do you do this job? I thought my heart would break when the old Russian man shuffled into your room with his sick cat’.

‘Its not easy Kate’, he said. ‘And it gets harder as I get older. But you have to do the best thing for the animal. Its not fair to keep a sick animal alive’.

‘I know’. I said. ‘But I can’t bear the thought of that old man going home alone without his pet and feeling sad’.

‘Oh, you don’t need to feel so bad’, said Ben. I’ve known this family for a long time and that man has a wife waiting for him at home, he’ll be fine. He also has a girlfriend, but you didn’t hear that from me’.

Well blow me down with a feather. I didn’t see that one coming. You’re right, as I watched the old man leave the vets that afternoon with an empty basket and the tall son who finally arrived back with two cups of coffee, I didn’t have to fight the urge to drive him to the local refuge and purchase him a pet with my own money.

So what’s the point of this post? I have no idea. My brain has turned to mush and I couldn’t think of an ending to this story if my life depended on it. But try this for size. As we step into 2008, we can cat-astrophize until the cows come home, but the truth is often simpler, happier and far less dramatic than we like to imagine.

Happy New Year y’all!