love

A close-up of Minette, a calico cat.

A Cat to Scorn Me (and Show Me How to Love)

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I’ve heard it said that to achieve perfect balance in life, everyone should have a dog to worship them and a cat to scorn them. I’m proud to say that, having grown up in a household that was almost always populated by both, I must be an exceptionally balanced soul.

Over the years, three dogs have taken up residence in my childhood home, not to mention my heart, and we’ve had the same beloved cat, Minette—moderately scornful, often dog-like in her affection—for 17 years.

She is in many of our home videos. She has slept almost as many nights in my parents’ home as I have. She knows every secret nook, every cozy sock basket and every strategic perch. She made me into a cat person, all by herself.

I’ve cried into her fur after many difficult days, and stuck bows on her indifferent little head on many Christmas mornings. My parents joke that, functionally, she helped raise their kids. Few things in this world bring me more joy than the knowledge that this cat exists.

You know where this is going…

Tomorrow, Minette will be making a trip to the vet, and she will not be coming home from it.

And so, I will turn to writing, as I’ve always done when grief comes knocking, or barging rudely, as it’s wont to do. I will tell the story of a cat who remains, despite the multitude of wonderful dogs in my life, my very best animal friend—a friend who helped me grow, gave me confidence, and taught me that Albert Ellis was right when he claimed love is “largely the art of persistence.”

“You are not Special.”

From the moment she came into our lives as a delicate-looking kitten with a croaky mew, Minette made it abundantly clear she saw no reason to treat me any differently than the other members of the household. (You can try arguing she simply wasn’t bright enough to realize I couldn’t see, but given the amount of things she tried to get away with while I was the only one around, I’d beg to differ.)

No, she would not be moving out of my way, no matter how many times I bumped into her. Nuh uh, she was not going to signal when I was about to accidentally sit on her; I’d just have to learn to be more careful. No, she was not going to spare me from duties like letting her out, letting her in, fetching her water, and providing mandatory snuggles.

And, yes, I was just as capable, as loved, as wanted as anyone else.

This doesn’t sound like much, but as a disabled eight-year-old, I was accustomed to being treated differently by just about everyone in my life. Grownups had different rules, expectations, goals, fears. I struggled to be helpful. I felt out of place. I was uncomfortably aware, as were those around me, that I was the odd one out, despite my family’s best efforts.
But around Minette, I was just another member of her loyal human staff, perfectly able to do her bidding, and perfectly worthy of her unreserved affection. In scorning me–in expecting me to adapt to circumstances not tailored to my every need–she taught me that life is full of surprises that will wind around your ankles and trip you, no matter how unprepared you may be.

Humans would work around me. Dogs would get out of my way.

Minette, not so much.

Balance, right?

“Human, I Summon Thee”

Minette isn’t the least bit imperious. H. P. Lovecraft, who liked his cats “lithe and cynical,” would not have approved. The choicest spot was always as close as she could get to the nearest available lap, and her favourite activity was waking me in the mornings with a torrent of kisses. (Her tongue may have had astonishing exfoliation powers, but I would personally have preferred the alarm clock.)

Since she split her time between indoor and outdoor pursuits, she was often in need of something or other.

“Human, I have kicked my toy under the stove. Help!”

“Human, I need to take up 90% of your queen-sized bed, not this paltry 75%. Move over.”

“Human, I am hungry. I am thirsty. I need to go out. I need to come in. I need a cuddle. I need you!”

For the first time, a fellow living creature  was in sincere need of me, and I was able to fulfill that need. It was one thing to do chores, but it was another to hold, feed, and care for an animal that depended on me as much as anyone else in the family. Somehow, caring for a dog wasn’t quite as validating. The implicit, unwavering trust that cat put in me, a trust I hadn’t yet found elsewhere, not even in my dog, was transformative.

Adults were forever telling me to ‘be careful,’ ‘slow down,’ ‘let me do that for you.’ Dogs were always pushing me out of the way—of traffic, of water, of anything that looked remotely dangerous.

Minette, on the other hand, saw no reason why I should not attend her as faithfully as any other. She barely blinked as I handled her newborn kittens, and was never shy about insisting I find her a treat. Speaking as a blind person who still fights to be useful, nothing builds confidence like a little bit of trust.

“I’ll Be Back”

I don’t know of any cat who loved bigger, harder, more persistently than Minette. You couldn’t get rid of her. I have many memories—God, but they hurt to think about now—of pushing her off my lap as she walked all over my book, or my keyboard, or my plate, or my fancy new outfit. (In our house, you weren’t ready to go out until you’d been sufficiently furred up.)

She had to be on you, not beside you. She had to lie on your pillow or in your arms, not down by your feet. She needed all the snuggles, all the time. And she had a special, highly effective meow pattern in place to make sure she could always get through my bedroom door:

  • Meow #1: inquisitive and chirpy. “Meagan? Are you awake?”
  • Meow #2: cheerful and warm. “I knew you were up! Let me in, will ya? I haven’t walked all over your head yet today.”
  • Meow #3: confused and injured. “You mean … you’re actually pretending to be asleep right now? Seriously? I can hear you turning pages. I know you’re awake. Not cool, Meagan!”
  • Meow #4: resigned and piteous. “Okay, you win. I am now desolate and despondent, but that’s just fine … I’ll remember that. And by the way, the guilt’s going to kick in any moment now.”

The beautiful thing about having Minette in my life was that I got to observe unconditional, extravagant love on a daily basis. I could push her off my lap five times, but she’d come back six. I could trip over her, accidentally shut her in an empty room, even forget about her. But I could not ever lose her joy at seeing me—her delight in the time I spent with her. No matter what kind of day I’d had, no matter what mistakes I’d made or burdens I carried, there was always that engine-like purr. If I had a migraine, a broken heart, truly torturous chemistry homework, she was there. For her, my need for comfort was always valid.

I hope I can learn to love like that—with a few more boundaries and a little less keyboard-trampling, of course.

Run free and chase the sunbeams, Meeners. Thank you for everything you gave us.

Cooking My Way Toward Confidence

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I’m not much of a cook. I’ll get that out of the way first and foremost. You’ll never catch me humblebragging about my culinary adventures, and my best recipes come from Google. I’m far better at googling than I will ever be at cooking. In fact, part of the reason I fell so immediately, intensely in love with my better half was that the man could cook, and I was in desperate need of a healthier relationship with food. Fiercely independent as I was, I was ready to let someone feed me, and he did so with relish.

I have a tower of excuses for my abysmal cooking abilities. I don’t have the time (I often do), or the spoons (I sometimes do), or the know-how (which I could probably learn if I applied myself, let’s be honest).
The real story is a lot less sympathetic. Simply put, cooking is scary for a blind person who lacks confidence during hands-on tasks, and I’m one of them. I’ll write you a set of speaking notes in less than an hour, for an event I’ve never heard of, on a topic I know nothing about. That’s juuust fine. But please don’t ask me to do anything with my hands other than write, play the piano, and carry your stuff.

“But Meagan,” you insist, “surely you’re overthinking this! It’s not that complicated.” (You’re right. Congratulations.) Special training is not strictly necessary, and the majority of blind cooks I know are at least partially self-taught. It’s tricky, but it’s not arcane.

And yet, the chronic diffidence persists, and it didn’t originate with me. For as long as I can remember, sighted people have been all too happy to enumerate the disasters that might befall me. Knives can’t wait to chop off those precious fingers that help me read and use my cane. Boiling hot liquids are just waiting to terrorize me with much spattering and spilling. Grease fires lurk around every corner, poised to consume unsuspecting paper towels. Measuring is messy. Preparing dishes without visual input is imprecise. Whatever I make probably won’t be perfect. (The horror!)

And so, being someone who fears messes almost as acutely as I fear failure, I stayed out of the kitchen unless compelled to do otherwise. The years I lived alone meant I subsisted on an insipid rotation of frozen dinners, canned soup, and snack foods that lacked nutritional value but quieted my hunger. Every now and again, when I wasn’t busy studying or writing papers in a feverish haze, I’d throw together a salad or heap a random assemblage of ingredients in my slow cooker and hope for the best. My standards were low and I was frequently too ill to eat at all, so this worked for me … for a while.

Once I started working full time and transitioning to “real” adulting, I began longing for more in nearly every facet of my life. I wanted to travel more, socialize more, and acquire the grownup skills I thought I ought to have picked up years ago. My student days were marked by severe migraines and appetite-killing pain, and I was mostly too ill to notice I was living a small, sad existence. Now that I was blossoming, really learning to thrive, I felt I should take the act of cooking more seriously—for my health, if for no other reason. And there they were, my faithful, time-worn excuses.

But this time, there was a new element: my afore-mentioned better half. He didn’t have a lot of time or energy, either, but when he did, he’d prepare delicious meals for me and, eventually, for our friends. Nothing made me prouder than a group of my loved ones sitting at our kitchen table, exclaiming over his prodigious talent. There was immense satisfaction in the act of nurturing people, of bringing them together through the medium of food. An ongoing source of suffering in my life has been the perception that I have nothing to offer. No one needs me, I can’t be counted upon, and I will never make others feel cared and provided for in the ways so many have done for me. It’s a common and heartbreaking reality of disability, which very few of us escape entirely.

But bearing witness to the magic my partner could call forth by simply whipping up a meal and inviting people to our table made me question those long-held assumptions about myself. Perhaps I really was capable of nourishing others as they had so often nourished me. Watching him at work filled me with such an expansive, buzzy feeling of well-being that I decided it was time for me to be brave and turn these one-man meals into a team effort. I wanted to do more than stand on the sidelines of his generosity—a generosity I shared but couldn’t easily express. I wanted to help make it happen.

I’m still a bad cook. (What’s that? You thought this would be a story of radical transformation? Triumph over adversity? Sorry, wrong blog.) I’m not sure that will change, though experience will help me hide it better. What I do have is patience, inspiration, and determination to improve. I also have a partner who appreciates every contribution I make, whether it’s researching recipes or taking care of the food prep he finds unendurably dull. He knows I have a long way to go before I’m satisfied with my skill level, but he is happy to celebrate the baby steps between where I am now and where I want to be. The pure, unbridled joy he takes in those baby steps gives me the space and freedom to celebrate them, too.

With every meal we coordinate together, with every recipe we choose and every cozy conversation that plays out over our cutting boards, I feel my confidence building and, more and more now, a growing closeness not only with the partner I cook with, but the people I cook for. Showing love in words has always been easy, but showing that love with my hands was always an epic struggle. Now, with practice, I am learning to embrace the work of my clumsy, imperfect hands as a pathway to enhanced self-worth and a better relationship—with myself, my partner, and my loved ones.

The cherry on top of the sundae? I haven’t yet managed to chop off any fingers or start any grease fires. (I’ll just have to try harder.)

TLDR: If you’re looking for a way to bring more big buzzy waves of well-being into your life—and really, who isn’t—cook for yourself. Cook for the people you love. If you can, cook right alongside those people, even if the thought of others watching you work is uncomfortable.

Running low on spoons? Don’t have enough time in the day? Scared you’ll mess it up? Do as much or as little as you feel you can. I promise you that whether I do the heavy lifting for a meal or merely slice a carrot or two, the happy buzzy vibes show up either way. It’s the sense of competence and collaboration that matters, not the volume of work done or effort made. The benefits of cooking for yourself and others are endless, and you can’t go wrong with a little extra confidence now and again. I learned that the hard way, so you don’t have to.

Weightless, Wanted, Worthy

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While reading Martin Pistorius’s powerful book, Ghost Boy, I was struck by a passage in which Martin, experimenting with a body that does not behave predictably, attempts to make breakfast for his partner, Joanna.

I forced the knife downwards, cleaving it to my will as it hit the side of the toast before skittering across the plate and leaving a glistening red slick on the table. I stared at the battered toast before looking at the floor, which was covered in coffee granules and sugar. The butter looked as if a wild animal had chewed it and jam had erupted like a volcano across the table. Euphoria filled me. I’d made toast, coffee was waiting in the cups, and the water had boiled—Joanna was going to have breakfast. I banged a spoon on the table to let her know I was ready, and a smile spread across her face as she walked in. “How nice to have breakfast made for me!” she said.

Some might interpret Joanna’s enthusiasm as pretense. As you read through the book, you quickly discover that while Joanna is fully aware of the many barriers Martin faces, she supports his efforts to try new things, even when they end in an imperfect, sticky mess. Martin and Joanna’s marriage is founded on genuine respect and validation, with no suggestion that she is giving anything up to be with him. Rarely have I seen such a beautifully balanced framework, where limitations are acknowledged but never allowed to overwhelm the entire structure.
Naturally, reading about Martin and Joanna got me thinking about my own relationship. My partner has a disability of his own, but it is invisible, and comes up so rarely I sometimes forget it exists at all. We live much like a couple in which only one party is disabled, and we both had to adjust to the different things we need from each other to grow and be happy.
In addition to needing all the conventional things, like love and companionship and the space to laugh with someone in the face of life’s trials, I also crave specific validation from my partner—the validation that says, “I acknowledge that you are disabled, but you are no less complete for it.” From day one, even as I walked him through my various barriers and how they might be an issue for him, he treated me like a whole, autonomous person, and nothing less. If I ever feel inadequate or out of place in the context of our life together, it is my own anxiety talking, not his. Again and again over the past few years, I have been caught off guard by the simple, implicit trust this man places in me every day, without thought and without a hint of charity. Strangers on the bus might wonder what I’d do without him, but he frequently asks me what he’d do without me.
What does this look like in practice? Mostly, it’s an intangible thing—more felt than seen, and usually unspoken. I can point to scores of small things that add up to a larger pattern, and that’s how I can best explain the dynamic.
For example, he asks my opinion on things, with the assumption that of course I’ll have one, and of course it’s as valid as anyone else’s. He doesn’t bombard me with questions about how “blind people” feel about X Y or Z. No, he asks about the best way to install a showerhead, or which ingredients would enhance a new recipe, or what political news of the week is most relevant. Far from assuming I mustn’t be knowledgeable about anything outside the realm of my disabilities and personal interests, he assumes that I am likely to know a little about a lot, and if I’m not sure, I’ll be straightforward about that. I don’t always have opinions or suggestions, but it is so novel and so satisfying to be asked as an equal—as someone who knows things and whose judgment can be trusted. It shouldn’t be so remarkable, but I think most disabled adults would agree that unless the topic is disability-related, our voices are often overlooked.
Like Joanna, my partner doesn’t expect perfection from me, but does expect me to experiment, and won’t ever shame me for the results. He would rather I demolish the kitchen cooking breakfast than have me avoid cooking altogether in case something goes wrong. It’s not that he humours me or enjoys watching me struggle. He simply expects me, as his partner, to contribute where I can and shed my irrational insistence on perfection. If I get hopelessly lost while attempting to conquer my travel demons, he’ll still be sincerely proud that I was brave enough to try, without resorting to empty praise or minimizing my mistakes.
As I’ve noted several times on this blog, living well with disability requires a great deal of self-confidence—or plenty of skill at faking it until you make it—because that confidence won’t come easily from outside yourself. If you don’t have faith in your abilities, you may struggle to find someone else who does. The less you feel you have a right to your place in the world, the less welcoming the world seems to be. While I’ve cultivated my own strong sense of self-respect, I’ve discovered it’s far more bracing when my partner reflects it back at me. I am fortunate indeed to make my home with someone whose faith in me exceeds my own, never hesitating to remind me I am whole.
I’ll return to Martin’s words, because he put it so beautifully: “I’ve lived my whole life as a burden. She makes me feel weightless.”
I, too, have lived my whole life worrying that I am too much like unwanted luggage. But he, together with so many others, makes me feel weightless, and wanted, and worthy.
From where I’m standing, there is no greater love than that.

Let’s Get This Over With: A Love Story

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One year ago today, I met a new friend for a casual evening of food and conversation. We had exchanged several text messages and met a couple of times, but we didn’t know each other very well at all. I assumed him to be a stand-up guy—we had a few mutual friends who vouched for him—but that’s all I knew. When asked by friends and family whether this outing was a date, I protested that I was still grieving over the devastating dissolution of a 4.5-year relationship (absolutely true) and was in no state to be dating anyone, much less a mere acquaintance. As the evening progressed, however, and an innocuous meal turned into an entirely too romantic walk along the river valley (the sun was setting, the atmosphere was intoxicating, we didn’t really have a choice in the matter), I realized, quite abruptly, that this was, indeed, a date.
Uh-oh.
Faced with the prospect of opening myself to a new person so soon after being mistreated by someone else, I began to panic. I couldn’t possibly be ready for this! I had so many problems! My mental health was at one of its lowest points, and that’s saying something. I was perpetually exhausted, (I had new-job syndrome), and was nursing emotional wounds that are still healing. My moods were unpredictable. My emotional landscape felt jagged and chaotic. Most days, it seemed as though I was being held together by threads so frayed and fragile they’d snap at the slightest provocation. I was an undeniable mess—not an appealing or interesting mess, the way a million colours scribbled on a page can be beautiful in their own nonsensical way. No, I was more like the mess you shove hastily into your closet when company comes knocking—the kind you pretend doesn’t exist and continually refuse to sort out because it’s too daunting. If you opened that closet door, you know everything would come tumbling out.
That, dear reader, was the version of me trying to decide whether I was prepared to pursue a new relationship.
Certain that I had stumbled into a misunderstanding and determined to set the record straight, I did what any sensible gal would do on a first date: I sat down on this near-stranger’s couch—and an attractive stranger he was, too—and told him everything that made me undatable.
Yes, that was my first-date strategy: reveal every conceivable shortcoming, cover every awkward topic, explore every taboo, and excavate any past mistakes that would disqualify me as a suitable girlfriend. Lay it all out, get the unpleasantness out of the way, and he’ll balk, right? Surely telling him all about my multiple disabilities, my mental illness, my dubious track record with romantic relationships, my spectacularly poor choices, my insecurities, my unwillingness to ever have children, my overwhelming fear of failure—all of these would definitely scare him off, yes? In the name of honesty, I dredged up everything I could think of that would make him retract his interest so I wouldn’t have to deal with big, scary decisions.
In short, I handed him every reason he’d ever need to call it quits before we’d even begun … as one does.
Those of you who don’t know me very well may think you know where this is going. He was caught off guard, improvised some polite and sympathetic response, and led me gently to his door. When a woman implies, without an ounce of subtlety, that she is a disaster on legs, just thank the universe she’s not wasting more of your time.
Those of you who do know me realize that’s not quite how it happened. Instead, he sat quietly and listened while I gave him my spiel. He asked a few respectful questions, provided the odd empathetic comment here and there, and waited patiently until I was finished.
“So…okay…I’m sorry I dumped all this on you, but I really need to know. I need to know if you can handle all my … stuff. Otherwise, there’s just no point. Anyone I’m with has to be okay with my disabled, chronically ill, foolish self.” (For those of you fuming at my excessively self-deprecating portrayal of disability and chronic illness…just hang on. I’m getting to that.)
“Yeah. Of course. I think it’s great that you told me all this now. It’s brave to tell me, and it’s good information to know.”
As it turns out, not only did this remarkable creature have a disability of his own (moderate and mostly invisible), he was happy to explore romance with someone who had a handful of fairly serious problems, as long as I was willing to be honest about them. Exposing everything in one go, on day one, had the opposite effect you might imagine. Far from deterring him, it encouraged him to trust me and seemed to make me even more attractive to him. With everything on the table from the get-go—and yes, for those wondering, he did reciprocate by telling me many of his own struggles that night—we went into our tenuous relationship knowing there would be few surprises and no unnecessary anxiety about whether we were putting on a good face for each other.
Naturally, there were some who were horrified by what I’d chosen to do.
“You talked about all that stuff on the first date? Were you actually trying to scare him away?”
“Well…yes.”
On the other hand, many others were pleased to hear that my impulsive strategy had worked, and a few even confessed they’d like to try it for themselves, perhaps more gracefully than I had, but with the same unflinching sincerity.
“It would be kind of nice,” some said, “not to have to worry about them ‘finding things out.’” The slow reveal, especially with invisible disabilities and mental illness, can be even scarier than spilling it all out at once.
There was another latent benefit to depositing my life story into the lap of someone loving and respectful: I was reminded, once again, that my disabilities, illness, and various other attributes don’t make me undatable. They may present significant challenges, but they are not objects of shame, ridicule, or guilt. Choosing to date me even with full knowledge of my broad range of atypical challenges was an act of faith, perhaps, but never of charity. My partner wasn’t doing me a favour by agreeing to “handle” these things. I wasn’t “undatable,” and never have been.
Today, as I celebrate my first anniversary with a partner I have come to respect and adore, I appreciate the many ways in which our story could have veered into much darker territory. He could have been repulsed by what I’d disclosed. He could have promised he would handle it and realized that wasn’t a promise he could keep. He could have used the sensitive information I gave him to do me harm. Any number of catastrophes could have resulted from the way I handled our first date. Reeling from exhaustion and pain, I wasn’t in the most stable state of mind, and I fully acknowledge that if I’d been in a better place emotionally, I may have dealt with this differently.
All this has taught me that the recipe for a healthy relationship requires trust and forthrightness from the very beginning. Even if you don’t present your prospective partners with bulleted lists of all your issues—and I don’t generally recommend that you do—it’s essential that you feel comfortable around a person you’re planning to date. Romantic relationships place us in vulnerable positions, and if you don’t think your partner could handle how ill you get during migraines, or how much help you need when trying to identify objects you can’t see, you should keep looking. In the meantime, remember that while there may be many people out there who aren’t right for you, you deserve to find someone who is.