cats taught me a lot about boundaries
I went on a walk today. The weather is nice, temperate. I can take four consecutive steps without sweating beads. Autumn is here. Let’s go.
I make my way to the first stop of my walk: local café. It’s bustling for a Saturday morning, but still enough seats for me to choose from. I order chai with an espresso shot added in, and two pastries.
I wait at the bar area. I’m thinking ahead of how the walk will go, then just as I’m beginning to thinking too far ahead, my order is ready. I eat, sip, and read a book until my pulse jumpstarts and I can’t sit still. The objective is to walk again. Trash is tossed respectfully, and my exit is punctuated by the door chiming a farewell.
The next stop is a public park. I take a different route this time. I pass by a set of apartments with sparsely filled parking spaces. I see a cat make its way underneath cars in a coordinated path, predetermined, wired into its front and hind legs.
That is, until I step on a crunchy leaf while trying to get a better vantage point to approach with an offering of scritches. The cat seemed appalled that I interrupted the flow of its stride. It stops and scans me further. I wave before stepping forward, and it takes off into a crevice in the apartment’s foundation.
I continue to the park, but I think of the cat on and off as I put one foot over the other in a similar pace as said cat’s. I can’t help but wonder what I could’ve done differently. This isn’t unusual, just a thought that comes and goes with any cat encounter in the wild. I do, though, think more about cat encounters as a cat “owner.”
I’ve “owned” my first cat under my name for a little over a year. I say “owned” and “owner” in quotes since I don’t think cats can comprehend being bound in this social contract like dogs do. Instead, cats have a prerogative of tolerance. Their loyalty is measured by the patterns of actions of others interacting with them. If you’re nice once, you’ll need to show that you really are through consistency. It takes time to earn a cat’s trust, first, before being chosen for loyalty.
Loyalty, though, isn’t fixed permission. My cat isn’t always open to being pet on her head. Sometimes, I have to gesture for her permission. It’s not always given. I will say, in the first months of her living in my apartment, I felt offended that she didn’t immediately let me pet her head. I felt she owed that to me by the virtue of letting her share the apartment with me. (Wrong!) I thought that when she did eventually let me pet her head, I was granted infinite scritch perms. (Very wrong!)
When my cat doesn’t like something, she’ll fire a warning shot (loud meow) before deciding that it’s either play time (swatting claws and bites) or to take off elsewhere (“blink and you’ll miss her” speed). Either way, it’s not my way just because I initiate, or rather, assume that what I decide is law.
As it turns out, I learned a lot about boundaries through cats. People-pleasing tendencies got me lost in how I’ll be inconveniencing someone else with a hard stop. The concept of saying “no” in an otherwise boundary-overstepping situation feels like a rollercoaster about to drop. Better to be diplomatic at my own expense, so then I won’t have to shrivel in the face of confrontation. Things will be “okay” if I’m complaisant.
That’s my end of the boundaries, though (which is important, too, but walk with me here). Being on the other end--when I’m being told “no”--gives this boundary audit a whole other dimension. It’s people-pleasing in another insidious font. I want things to go my way because that’s the narrative that I decided is more conducive for all of us involved. I choose the good ending so you don’t have to.
But, that sucks after a while. People pleasing sucks, actually. Protecting your space rules, ac-tu-a-lly. Understanding the nuances of boundaries is super cool, ac-tually!
The gut instinct to say “no” is a reliable signal. Sometimes, it’s flat out as reflexive as an “ow!” from a paper cut. Other times, it needs some thinking before a “I don’t think I liked that” is announced. Regardless, the right people will respect that I’m assertive with my boundaries, and I will respect the same in return.
Final stop is home, and my cat lets me pet her this time.