Jumping In With All Four

I used to have a cat (Sylvester) that enjoyed my company. In fact, he thought nothing of invading my personal space at any given time, especially when I was doing something important, such as typing on the computer or eating a sandwich. He was obsessed with the limelight and would persist in his attention-grubbing until someone...namely, me...would give it to him. He learned an interesting lesson, however, one day while I was taking a bath. He jauntily padded into the bathroom, giving me that little welcome "brrrrrrrt?" and popped up onto the side of the tub. I think that he must have been confused as to what might be keeping my hands from automatically reaching up to scratch his ears, so rather than waiting for me to decide whether or not I was going to pet him, he chose to come to me. This he did, much to the dismay of both of us. He jumped toward me, with all four paws which all landed in the water. As soon as he realized that the substance that I was sitting in was wet, he regretted his decision and made a mad dash toward reversing it as quickly as possible. Eyes as big as yellow saucers, he splashed back out of the tub, soaked from ear to tail, but not before leaving a couple of bleeding souvenirs on my leg, and then streaked out the bathroom door toward the living room where I'm sure he went to hide behind the sofa to shiver in silence. He never visited me in the bathroom again.

Sylvester and I have a lot in common. I have a tendency, also, to obssess about things that I'm interested in until I find that I've landed with all four paws in the midst of something that is overwhelming for me, and then I get frightened of it and run away. Sometimes its my religion; sometimes a hobby; sometimes even something as simple as a color scheme. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. I see it in the customers in my store who come in to buy an item, but leave with five more items they didn't need simply because they matched the "theme" of the kitchen, or the color of the bedroom. It is the bigger things, however, that I do not share with the rest of the nation that bother me, though--the negative ones. I suffer from jealousy and depression, which usually obssess my mind like a constant drizzle. My family suffers from it, too, which is where the similarity to Sylvester's scratching me in the tub come in. I can't obssess about something without it affecting others around me in negative ways. So, it is my desire and my goal to conquer these obssessive behaviors and stop leaping before I look. I am hoping to find more time to write about it, but my life is tremendously chaotic at the moment, so I will have to simply remember it all, and mentally record it for a later time. I will prevail.