To Lauren, living alone with cats is the ultimate life-style. But she has a new roommate who doesn’t like the solitude of Lauren’s home one bit.
Someone with large green eyes and whiskers.
Yesterday, my friend Damian discovered my kitty vision box: a beautiful hot pink and black box that originally held a €200 tablecloth.
Not mine, I don’t even have a table.
It was now filled with the tangible memories of all my cats, such as their passports and the address tube from my first cat when I was still a teenager.
It also held a bracelet that I had bought for myself a month ago, that said Cat Mom.
I wore it occasionally when I was working behind my desk, to remind myself what the reason was that I wanted a career writing from home. Which was to provide for myself, and for my new cats.
To be there for them and to have the day to myself as well.
It was basically how I had lived for nine years, as single cat mom, until my last cat Max died in January. It had been years where I had fully embraced both the joys as well as the limitations of having cats.
I barely went on holidays, and cancelled them last minute if my cats got sick.
When Max died it would take at least a year before I could have new cats.
My career as a yoga teacher had slowly but steadily slipped downhill.
And we had an upcoming refurbishment from the housing corporation, where the house would be uninhabitable for a month.
So I had at least an entire year to myself, before everything would be cat-ready again. Yet the absolute last thing on my mind was a holiday.
I longed for my career to be figured out.
For the refurbishment to be over.
And to have new cats.
And that was eight months ago, and I’m still nowhere near figuring out point one, my career. It’s been a pretty wild ride, but currently I am no longer a yoga teacher, although for business purposes I do still own the studio, and do teach occasionally.
It’s all very new, but it looks like I m going to do pop-up classes that I plan only 24 hours in advance.
And teach privates.
It’s not a fulltime occupation, or income, yet I don’t have a business model in place for my writing either.
And I seem to have a dangerous tendency to recreate a job, or business model, that consists of things that I don’t really want to do.
That are not my strengths at all.
The past few weeks I ve been working with a creativity coach, which has led to the discovery that I have been “majoring in my minors”.
Instead of working starting with my inner world, and focusing on creating, I seem to automatically make a career out of being a guide to others.
First by being a yoga teacher.
Toyed with the idea of becoming a math teacher multiple times.
Added being a mindset mentor to my list of expertise.
With a spin-off to being a mindset and marketing mentor to entrepreneurs, writers and artists.
And now for my writing too, and my latest work there which revolves around being a mistress, I thought I would be helping mini-mes who were still in the dark about their sexual identity.
I even intended to start a new video series about being a mistress, on my YouTube channel. Which I immediately discarded when I realized I was putting myself “out there”. When my best work was created “in here”.
I am an introvert.
Teaching or guiding or being great company, or simply being company at all; might be available AFTER doing my purpose work.
However they are not, my purpose work.
I can think of jobs that are relatively “energy neutral”, so to speak. In the sense that although they are not my purpose work they won’t drain me of my energy.
But being a guide isn’t one of them.
Social encounters or endeavors are perfect to spice up my life or my work, but if they require planning, or are mandatory, or if they require my attention before the purpose work gets done?
Guiding sucks the life out of me.
And knowing that my new life began to take shape.
If I had it my way (and why wouldn’t I?) I would create whatever I wanted;
Send that out into the world , and not create for the sole purpose of serving;
Put on my coat and go to the movies or have a drink with a friend.
And I would have cats who could lie on my lap as I was writing, or walk over my yoga mat as I was creating yoga videos.
Just like the nine years prior, I wouldn’t need any holidays, because I was so content with my life, and loved to put the cats first.
And it was that dream life, that was embodied by the box with cat paraphernalia.
The moment I had put together the box had been really sad.
I had been decluttering and stumbled upon things like notes from the babysitter after she had visited Max; My description on which medicine he needed and how it should be administered.
Just in case I got hit in traffic.
And it made me so sad that my cats had died and that I had to go without cats, for God knows how long.
My professional life was nowhere near cat-ready.
And I cried and felt miserable that Monday night, but by collecting all the little things in a box, I was holding the vision that one day I would have cats.
And it manifested really quickly because on Thursday my friends asked me if I could look after their cat for a limited period of time. Because she seemed to be having stress from living with the other cats. And she was supposed to only eat diet food, but that was difficult to manage as they had multiple cats.
If she could live with me for three months, they would be able to see how she did eating only her preferred food, and without stress from the other cats.
And I would have a little feline these cold, lonely months.
But it’s Sunday morning now, and she has not left her spot under the bed since I got up.
She was still meowing and walking around like a real queen when my two friends were still here, and she did occasionally left the bed the first hours after they had left.
But since last night she has only left her spot under the bed, when I was asleep. She’s so quiet.
The reason I think having cats and working from home go hand in hand is because that’s the only way you can keep an eye on them, to see if they’re okay or if they want you to do something.
And this little lady is clearly not doing okay.
And the only thing I can do for her, is to get her home.
Apparently, she’s not too keen on holidays either.
<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living
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Holiday is the nineth chapter from Project M.
tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!
Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now – I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.
Als je Nederlands bent is 22 erotische verhalen een aanrader.
Maar je kunt natuurlijk ook gewoon de hele shop leegkopen.
These are my English titles:
Dutch American Diary 2008-2009 €15
LS Diary 2012-2013 € 10
Bedtime Stories 2014 €15
Mirage 2014 €5
Big, diaries and erotica 2015-2016 € 20
Get a 25% discount on all prices in the shop.
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.
De volgende Nederlandse boeken
zijn ook op voorraad bij boekhandel de Feeks in Nijmegen
verzending gratis v.a. € 17,50
Het Boek Benjamin € 45
verzameld werk NL en Engels.
Het enige boek dat hier niet inzit is Witte Tijgerin, dus mijn andere Nederlandse boeken zitten hier wél in.
Mango €15
coming of age novelle
22 erotische verhalen € 15
literaire pornografie in de geest van Anais Nin
Witte Tijgerin €5
gids voor solitaire vrouwen die een geweldig seksleven willen en plenty energie
LS Harteveld 