Mission Possible

She didn't know she was my mission today.  She was innocently doing her job. But she was IT.  She was my reason.

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"What's on your agenda today?"

"I'm going to send out a few resumes and hang out with the cat." I think a little harder before adding, perhaps a bit too exuberantly, "oh, and it's a vacuum day!"  Crap. I have clearly overplayed my excitement about what to do today.  

"I have a mission for you," he says as he slides on his shoes, "should you choose to accept it."

I sit up.  Ooooohhhh, a mission.

"I want you to leave the apartment and go talk to a person," he says. Suddenly I am slouched back down again.  "An adult person," he clarifies, knowing I am likely to just wander across the street to talk to the little kids playing in the playground."Not the cat," he clarifies further, as if I am suddenly mindless and unaware of the difference between a feline and a person. "I worry about you being home alone all the time with just the cat."

It's not that I don't want to talk to an adult person. It's that I have no idea who I should talk to.  I decide that it counts if I talk to a cashier, if I am friendly, if I am polite, if I ask relevant questions that demand more than two word answers.

As soon as he shuts the door behind him, I tuck the blanket up around my neck, recline back on the couch, shut my eyes, curl my fingers around the cat's belly as she jumps up on my chest, and begin to cry. 

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But I shall not accept defeat. I work out, I vacuum, I scoop the litter, I clean the stove top, the fridge, and consider making the bed, only to realize I don't want to make the bed.  I try desperately not to talk to the cat like she's a person, but damn it, she's all I have. 

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When the vet calls to say the medication we ordered is in, I hurriedly get dressed and run over there.  The woman working the register doesn't know she's my mission, but after a few questions about the medication and scheduling yet another appointment, I have fulfilled my mission. 

Mission complete.