What have I not done?!

This morning at around 5:00am, one of my cats began the morning ritual of making this odd, almost chirping sound. Not a meow, growl or other typical cat sound but, something that resembles a sick bird. Like he has a sore throat but is trying to meow.

He begins to roam around as well. From my feet to the pillow above my head. Back and forth. Up and back with stops in front of my face to reach out and gently tap me with his paw. No claws, no aggression, just a nice and slow tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

At some point I give up hoping he will stop and get up to feed him. Back to bed for me after his bowl has wet food in it.

Then, when I think he should be satisfied and I will be getting back to sleep – nope. It all begins again but this time around he has chicken pate breath when he gets close to my face to chirp.

This last time, just this morning, I as getting aggravated and pretty much angrily snapped at him, “What the fuck is your problem?! Why are so fucking needy, want all this attention?!”

He stopped and had a turn and run stance. He held that position for a very short moment, then came right up to my face to tap me with his paw.

I was just about to snap at him again, possibly pick him up and drop off the bed, when something kinda popped in my head. Something occurred to me that I had never once before thought of. Not one single time in the decade that he has been doing this.

He was not trying to get my attention. He was trying to give it to me. Share his time and energy with me. Not to take from me but to give to me.

There he was, a cat on the smaller side, just living his best life and doing everything he could to live it and share it with me. Give to me a gift that I was, am too self-centered, too negative, too defeated to notice.

I stopped being bothered, relaxed on my back and reached out to pet his head. He got on my chest and began to rub his head on my hand, with intention! Hard, and quick, almost aggressively. Purring, occasionally stopping to play bite my fingers. Reaching out with his paws to hook my hand with his little claws. Not hard, just enough to catch then pull my hand back to where he could bite and rub his head on more.

Now, it was definitely all about him and his comfort, joy and playfulness. BUT, still, he wanted to do it with me. Share it with me.

I was struck with a sad, disturbing, and almost paralyzing thought. I have not lived my best life. I have made no effort to live my best life. Hardly tried to even live a good life. Just kept being alive and that’s about it.

I would say I have lived 4/5 of my life now. (He, that cat has about the same time in.) I have accomplished nothing. I have created nothing. I have assisted nothing and no one but myself. The most I can really claim is the care of this cat and some others in the home.

Recently, a friend sent me pictures of a place they had hiked out to. The panoramic view was breathtaking. “Wow!” I said. “I wish I could see a place like that.”

They tell me it was a short drive, perhaps half an hour at most and another half an hour walk. Not even a hike. Just a walk down a trail.

This remarkable place is the same travel time from a home I once owned.

Twelve years I lived in a place that is so beautiful, so wide open and amazing. Mountains, rivers, lakes, and wildlife. A David Attenborough wet dream kind of place.

I never saw any of it. I noticed it as I drove from here to there and back again. I even had a job of driving all around that state and others nearby. I noticed a lot of landscape along the way. I noticed how the sky looked bigger in some places than others. I noticed a lot of things.

What I did not do was see any of it. Experience any of it. Just little glimpses as I passed it all by.

That image came to me while I lay with my cat, coming to the realization more clearly than ever before, my life is nearing its end and I’ve wasted all of what has already past.

Every opportunity I never took. Every action that I could not be bothered to take. The countless hours spent thinking about all the things I would do, could do, wanted to do while sitting in front of a TV or at a bar. HOURS spent wishing I had the time to do things.

I am in a place now that really is not of my doing but that of my partners. Again, I have time to do many things. I have ‘stuff’ to do things with. So much stuff it is almost embarrassing. And still I sit, looking at a TV and talking about the things I will do with the stuff. Where I will take the stuff. How I am going to learn to master the stuff.

4/5 of my life has been lived without ever making the choice to do anything.

Now, I sit and wonder why. I sit and ask myself why I am still doing it. This realization does not feel new. Not an epiphany or anything like that. Just the thought that I have always been aware of what I was not doing. I have always known but always found a way or reason to ignore it all.

Now, I sit and continue to do nothing but ponder and make excuses for keeping up the charade that I am living.

1/5. One Fifth of my life left. What will I do it? When will I start to do it? Will I do anything at all? It does not feel like it.

Right now, the only thing I see actually changing, no matter what I say while I look at and touch all this stuff is, I will appreciate the gift my cat gives me daily. No matter that he does it so stupidly early in the morning.