An imaginary hunting trip
There's a popular idea that cats don't see humans as we see ourselves. Rather, they see us as some kind of big and strange cat. One of many cat-related things I've learned recently is that my cats actually believe I'm out hunting whenever I leave the house.
I was on a family trip to Iceland. We were concluding our travels and had an hour to wait at the bus terminal en route to the airport. That factoid about hunting slipped my mind shortly after I learned it, but chose this moment to return.
How dare I return to my cats from a week-long absence with nothing to show? I decided that this time, I'll assert my hunting might by conveying to them an exotic, never-before-seen catch. Of which the origin is, of course, the grocery store.
In Iceland there are these supermarkets under the name "Bonus". I'd never seen anything like them. On their walls you'll find murals of their logo, a strikingly pink pig with an oddly sardonic smile. One of these stores was to be my destination.
The bus terminal we were departing from was on the outskirts of the city. Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, is rightfully a city, but more aptly manifests the feel of a town. The trip to the store was maybe a 2-mile walk both ways, comfortably doable in the hour my family had before the bus came.
I told my family I was leaving and then, to no surprise, my mother insisted she'd go with me.
What's her issue?
I'm already an adult in my own right. The trip to the store was familiar. I had my phone and cell service. Matter of fact, my mother was the only one in the family who didn't have cell service, since she'd already exhausted the roaming plan allotted to her.
It's been like this as long as I can remember. She's always concerned about even the most trifling things. Micromanaging my life, basically. No matter the irritation I showed, she'd never let off. Maybe some people just don't change. I've accepted it, since I'm leaving for college soon. Too bad for my younger brother, though.
So we set off without a word of protest from me. On the way, I grumbled my thoughts in a poisonous tone and heard the same pathetic reply my mother always gave: that it was for my own good. Is it for my own good that I have little to no experience interacting with the real world?
My mother is a far more interesting person to talk to than my father, though. Even with his own children my father has this businesslike air about him. Every conversation with him is always about some pragmatic topic, with a cliche "lesson" supplied by him at the end. Contrarily, I feel I can talk to my mother about anything. I feel most at ease with her out of anyone else in my family. But at other times, most irritated. In recent years I've found it substantially easier for me to raise my voice at her. I yearn to apologize for it, but I feel ashamed even at the thought.
Regardless, I had her company for the walk, so I decided I might as well have used it. I forgot what exactly it was we talked about, but I reached the store feeling pretty agreeable.
My target was this Icelandic brand of fish jerky. Truth is, we had already been to this store before and I couldn't find it. This time, an online search confirmed to me it was there somewhere. I thought that, by going back again, I might notice it quickly in some random place I skipped over. This was false.
My mother suggested I ask one of the employees. Every time she does something like that I feel uneasy. I'm certain I have some kind of social anxiety. But thinking about it now, had I been alone and indeed clueless as to where the fish was, I don't think I would have felt too averted towards talking to someone. But my mother was there, so I decided to just pretend to keep looking, when in reality I was waiting for her to take the act of asking upon herself. And as I secretly hoped, that's exactly what she did. How can I yearn to be independent and then navigate like this in such a trivial situation?
As much as I hate it, she still sees me as a kid, and at some level I still feel like a kid. But I'm going to college next week! There's this intangible kind of closeness that fades away when you don't see a family member for a while. I experienced it firsthand when returning home after an extended time away for an internship. It felt awkward talking to my family (not my mother though, since of course she accompanied me), like I was still trying to carefully maneuver through yet another conversation with a stranger.
Some part of me hopes this closeness with my mother that fades during my time away at college won't come back. It's really only been a source of angst for the most recent few years. I wish just for some distance that can't be pulled close again. But my intuitive reaction argues this is a pitiful thing. I can't find any reason for why it would be so, other than for the sake of filiality. But just that could be reason enough.
This debate really would've been easier if my mother had just been absolutely terrible to me. Then I would know exactly what to do. But that's far from the case. Her virtue leaves me conflicted.
Within seconds we found the true hiding place of the fish jerky. It was just in the refrigerated room. Until that point I was pretty sure unopened jerky products didn't need to be refrigerated.
One day later, having arrived back in the States, I gave my cats a try of my Icelandic haul. I had low hopes, since they disliked some other dried fish product I'd previously gotten for them at Trader Joe's.
But to my surprise, they loved this one!