Hanging on

Four years ago this July, I left my job at Resource Interactive, launched my business, and welcomed two adorable kittens into my life.

They’re no Sockington, but my two fur babies, Bailey and Avery, bring me daily doses of love, joy and delight.

Avery likes to stand on her head and be petted (but never held) and Bailey is what we affectionately refer to as a lap whore because she jumps into our laps even when we’re standing up. (Yeowch! Those back claws are killer.)

And every day of every year for the past four years, one or the other of them drags a certain toy we call their “baby” through the house, meowing and yowling along the way.

This baby is (I should say was) a white, feathery puff that I once used to dust on sparkly body powder. They confiscated it from me, claimed it as their own, and now drag it through the house with said howling in order to “gift” it to us as a presumed token of their affection.

I wash it. I sew it. I repair it. But over the years it’s gone from intact to unraveled and now thread-bare. But they love it; and so we hang onto it though its natural life ended long, long ago.

The baby, which today is literally hanging on by its last thread, made me wonder: What do we hang onto that’s comfortable, yet tattered and worn? What are we afraid to let go of?

In writing, it’s often what we call “the little darlings,” the words and phrases and stories that we love and try to force-fit into our prose, often to its detriment. In life, it can be relationships, habits, jobs or shouldas/wouldas/couldas.

Perhaps today is the day to let go of something we’ve been hanging onto. What will you let go of?

By JanO on 5/21/10, In creativity, freelance writing, the writing life, writing, Tags adorable kittens, business, communication, communications, fur babies, HABIT, jobs, little darlings, relationships, the writing life, writing