If you're masking your innocence with intellect, open up!

I want something that I shouldn't.

It's even embarrassing to want it.

Ever feel this way?

We've got mice and I've got the feline itch (backed with reason).

I miss my girls whom were my rescue cats that had to be re-homed after my son had a heart attack. He was told he couldn't take allergy medication anymore, and my newborn was born allergic to cats at the same exact time. Chris too, is allergic to cats but for years, suffered through it miserably.

I dream of a siamese cat (they're hypoallergenic so....) laying under my legs while I write in the chill of winter months, channeling my inner muses alongside me and enjoying it just as much as I.

But I also have an on the ground perspective of cats. They're wildly entertaining, but in the process, they will scratch all your shit, knock down things you love, and may, if they're an asshole enough, piss on your bed.

Plus, I don't miss the smell of cat litter.

But I do miss my girls.

Chris says getting any other mammals is a hard no until months after our thirteen year old dog dies. But we have mice and I can't help but keep looking to scratch my itch.

"What are you doing?" I scold myself out loud when I looked in the mirror after hours of searching through cat culture and learning about the various kinds of breeds and their personalities (despite knowing that for Chris, it's a hard no).

"I love them" my little girl heart steps forward.

I see the truth in my statement. I see myself at five, feeding newborn kittens with droppers after my dad poisioned all the adults that could walk to the food bowl. (We had 81 cats, on a smallish property, so people just dropped off all their unwanted cats. My dad has #cattyissues.)

Then one day, they were just...gone. I never asked if my father killed them but I always wondered about them. I really do, love my feline friends.

I hear my mothers voice condescend. "You're not gonna take care of it Stac!"

I take a look at that statement for a second, and I feel shame that somewhere in me believes it may be true that I'm not gonna take care of the things I want.

But then I think of how when I wanted to move out, she told me I couldn't raise my kids on my own because I didn't give them a bath (every.single.night). But somehow, I moved out...and raised the kids on my own.

This is all more of the same mentally, and I see this as I look in the mirror at my process. I will not spiral away from myself in the present moment in this way, so I dig my claws in mentally, in an attempt to not spiral any further.

*This is when a woman whose been taught that her desires make her irresponsible and ungrateful, convinces herself that what she wants isn't necessary and that in fact, she's horrible for wanting it.

*It's when she talks herself off the ledge of deserving, and settles down because at least it's "not as bad as it was" despite that it could be a lot better than it is.

*This is when women use our mother's voices to convince ourselves that we don't "actually" want, what we want. It's when we use our head to talk ourselves way, way, way out of our guts.

I slip a bit downward in the spiral, "Why do you want a cat? You trying to fill some void? You should really look at that if you are. You know the boys are allergic!"

"Why do you want a cat?" I hear my mothers voice demand an answer but know its now mine.

Then I think of the spiral someone was on this week, and the advice I gave them.

*I'm talking about when WANTING triggers in oneself a sense of pathology rather than realization that indeed, on a guttural level, that feeling that you have...is a knowing of Self.

In her case, she didn't get something the way she wanted it and rather than sit with her hurt feelings about it, she talked herself out of feeling hurt by it.

She reasoned with her feelings.

Her knowing didn't match what was convenient, and so she became convenient and told herself her gut feelings, weren't.

Can you relate?

I wonder if only wildly gaslit people do this to themselves? I wonder if it's only us who talk ourselves out of our feelings or if this is something taught to us in the threads of collective womanhood?

It's a form of inner gaslighting.

*It's talking oneself out of ones own experience even when someone else isn't around to talk us out of it.

We're so used to being talked out of our own inner experiences that we pathologize even the most innocent experiences being had within us.

It's the mother whose about to sacrifice her kid to her cult, whispering "don't be scared" in her ear. It's fucking twisted.

And we do it to ourselves in lesser forms.

*We want something and demand reasons of ourselves for it, or demand first, a show of effort to deserve it. Rarely do we feel entitled to simply allow the wanting.

*Rather than be honest with ourselves about what we want or what's true for us, and let that be above all, true, we mince our truth down to a size of convenience and talk ourselves out of our feelings.

Often it ends us up at an intersection where we have the means to do something or offer ourselves something, that we tell ourselves we don't.

Reminds me of the guy in the show Alone who had more food saved than any of his opponents but he was pulled out because he was starving.

He talked himself out of his own hunger. While food looked him in the face, he searched relentlessly for more of it rather than relax into what he already had. He didn't honor his instinct to eat. He reasoned with it for the sake of a goal.

His reason, ungrounded by instinct, cost him his ultimate goal.

Point is, he didn't have to starve himself. But that dynamic is what a lot of us do in our inner world.

We are naturally called toward something. Or we naturally feel into something that our animal body knows better than we do. Then, we find ways to make that call, or that knowing, justifiable.

And if it can't be justified with reason, we chalk it up to mystic dissatisfaction with a side of guilt.

At which point we end up in bathroom mirrors asking ourselves why TF we want a cat in a shameful, scolding inner voice.

Or, asking ourselves "why" we want anything at all instead of simply "allowing" ourselves to want what we want for the joy of daydreaming about being with it.

Unless you're thinking of cheating on your spouse or being inappropriate with innocent life forms, the act of wanting, should not be pathologized in such a way that the very sensation of desire, comes showered in disbelief in ones own truth to enough degree that one can spend only a minute, completely talking themselves out of that which is truly desired (or known) for them.

Simply because it cannot be fully supported with logical means.

So if you want something and you ask yourself why on repeat as if wanting is a shameful, demoralizing thing that one should undress themselves of and cover up more modestly, ask yourself why you like the taste of chocolate. Or vanilla.

Some things can’t be understood, but are known.

I stopped trying to find ways to talk myself out of what I want.

Even if I don't get the materialization of what I want in reality, I'd sure like to go back to day dreaming about it rather than draining myself wondering why I want it in the first place.

I just do.

Where are you talking yourself out of what you know is true because the truth happens to be insurmountably inconvenient for all things life?

You're allowed to want it. And not get it.

And still want it.

And still not get it.

You don't have to talk yourself out of wanting that which you want because you didn't get it.

Knowing what your heart desires offers you so much juicy information about who you are.

Don't talk yourself out of who you are just because they did and it's all you know.

Make sense?

If our feline friends symbolize anything, it’s to let our intuition be our compass, not another person. If I can’t have one under my feet right now, I’ll take notes and become my own kind of feline.