I was chatting with my sister a couple days ago about blog post topics, and she asked if I’d ever updated my readers on how Flynn is doing. When I adopted this 2-year-old cat back in March 2018, I shared “Lessons From My Nervous Cat” and a follow-up post a few months later called “Anxiety Kitty: The Not-So-Surprising Way Pets Improve Mental Health.” He was such a frightened cat when I adopted him. After a few months, though, he’d started to settle in and trust me. I’m pleased to report that now, a few years after his adoption, he’s turned into a happy, contented cat.
This year has been one with big changes for us. I started grad school, which means Flynn and I moved from my parents’ home to an apartment shared with my sister. I was worried he wouldn’t do well with that transition to a new and smaller place, but he’s settled in quite nicely and only hides now if strange people knock on the door (as I write this, he’s under the bed because UPS dropped off a package). We did discover during the move that he hates car rides, even though I borrowed a medium-size dog carrier from some friends so he’d fit comfortably since my cat carrier is too small for this chonker (he is on a diet so please don’t worry about him too much).
We’ve discovered that Flynn likes watching horror movies with my sister (something I’m not interested in, so she appreciates having a movie-watching buddy). We’ve also found that he steals cotton swabs out of bathroom trashcans, he likes to hang-out in the bathtub for some reason, and ping-pong balls are his new favorite toy. He also likes to nap on my pillow since the head of my bed is near a window where he can spy on the neighbors, including the occasional bird or squirrel.
As I’d shared in my previous posts about Flynn, I struggle with nervousness and anxiety too. And I’m thankful to report that Flynn’s not the only one of us who’s doing well with the recent changes in my life. The anxiety isn’t all gone, but I am doing better. There were some days (including a couple weeks in the middle of the semester) when I was starting to worry about myself again but I got through it. I’ll probably set up a couple appointments with the on-campus counselors next semester, mostly as a preventative sort of thing to help keep myself mentally healthy.
I’ve also realized that I have a much better sense of who I am and what I bring to the table now than I did 12 years ago when I started college the first time. In one sense I suppose that should be obvious–it was so long ago that I’d be worried if I hadn’t grown! But sometimes I think it’s easy to miss how much progress we’ve made until there’s some big change to shake things up and make us take a close look at ourselves.
I can’t imagine 18-year-old Marissa working directly with people coaching them on how to do something like improve their writing, or see her speaking up during meetings and offering suggestions for making the campus writing center better. She also had a lot more difficulty adjusting to college than I’m having now with coming back, even though there were 8 years between graduating with my Bachelor’s degree and coming back to school for my Master’s. In some ways, being back in academia feels like coming home (which I’m taking as confirmation I’m in the right graduate program).
Life’s not without its challenges (an understatement, especially in 2020) but there are good things happening, too. I’m hoping that’s true in your life as well, and I’d love to hear about it!
What are some of the positive changes, challenges overcome, or good things that have happened in your life this year?
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