the adult(s) in the room

My best friend’s dad sends me sunrise photos regularly. Here is an original. Thank you, JB. 

Because so much of this space will be devoted to talking to and about people who I love, admire, and am in awe of, I wanted to start by talking about my Mooncats. Of course, I’ll eventually interview Mooncat Supreme (Phoebe) and Baby Mooncat (Meg) but in the mean time, I intend to set a tone of gratitude. I recently read the essay, What I Want to Know of Kindness by Devin Gael Kelly on Longreads. It’s a heart-stopping piece on grief, identity, and ultimately, like everything, growing up. I highly recommend reading it when you have a moment to lend towards thinking about things we don’t like thinking about. This passage in particular vibrated within me:

“We thought she would die that night. I remember buying a pack of cigarettes and smoking them as we excused ourselves for a breath of fresh air. The four of us stared at the sun setting over Bridgeport and I tried really hard not to cry. I don’t know how you become an adult. I think it takes a moment — standing outside a hospital with the friends you once did everything with and realizing you were never taught how to deal with any of this. That moment, when you realize no one taught you how to handle this specific instance of life — that is adulthood in a nutshell.”

It reminded me of a night a few years ago when I stood outside of an emergency vet in Monroeville, Pennsylvania at five in the morning, watching the sunrise, and smoking a Marlboro 27 as I cried and wondered what this particular moment in my life meant. I had just paid for my friend, Phoebe, to euthanize her twenty-something year old cat, Tippy, who we both loved and feared. Meg—our anchor or kite, depending on the setting—sat in the waiting room of the vet, lulling in and out of sleep, waiting for my shoulder pillow to return. Phoebe’s wedding was the next day; there was little time to wallow in the intensity of the hour.

Now I think back on that moment as crucial to the continuation of our friendship. We were young (still are), recently out of college, and flagellating wildly through life: moving, changing, breaking up. Meg and I were distressed by Phoebe’s choice to get married; Phoebe distressed by our begrudging support. It would’ve been an easy and sensible time for our college friendship to dissipate, as many college friendships do. But earlier that night, we’d gotten violently drunk and gyrated on the floor of Cavo, a Pittsburgh nightclub. A Mooncat party to rival the bachelorette party we’d already thrown. Phoebe had poured shots from the bottle into the mouths of thirsty male fish; Meg had fallen in love with a gigantic Russian bouncer; I had squeezed my curves into a skin tight leather dress. Simply put, we were happily ourselves. Together. And so by the time 3 AM rolled around and the cat had a stroke, the only thing to do was continue our togetherness.

The night in question, before things got too rickety.

I think of that night now, three years later, when I’m called to act in a situation where I’m not sure how to act. When my family fights, I lean on the women who taught me the importance of travel and tenacity and taste. When I feel crazy, I lean on the women who taught me what my crazy is worth. And when I don’t know who to lean on, I know I am their kin. I know I can lean on myself. When I think of what it means to be smart, tough, vivid, bold, and unrelentingly kind, I think of my best pals, my best gals, my Mooncats. To at least one hundred years more—

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