The Unexpected Lesson of 2025

I didn’t want cats. I truly never wanted cats. It never even crossed my mind that I might fall in love with them, or want them inside my house, or feel my heart rearrange itself around them. I thought they would be practical. Necessary. A solution to a problem.

The chicken feed brings in rats, mice, chipmunks, and squirrels. I knew we had more chipmunks than was probably ideal, but as soon as I started seeing rats and mice in the light of day every single day, I knew we had a real problem.

At first we tried poison — which worked — but it felt so wrong to me. The poison scared me. I realized I never wanted to use it again. Cats were suggested to us several times, but I initially wrote it off because I was vehemently opposed to a litter box in my house.

Eventually — I’m not even 100 percent sure how — I warmed up to the idea of an outdoor cat. It seemed like a good, practical solution to a rodent problem that had gotten wildly out of control this summer, and one that wouldn’t require much from me.

So we adopted barn cats. Their mother was a bit feral. She fed them mice. They had never been inside a house. They were going to be nice and tough and resilient, and they’d be a necessary piece of the ecosystem of our property.

We built them an insulated and heated outdoor cat house tucked into a corner on our screened porch where they’d have a safe little sanctuary to retreat to. I wasn’t really looking for another creature to worry over and tend to.

I’d had a hard fall with the chickens. My body was wracked with love and guilt and worry, and with the constant preoccupation of how to keep them alive and healthy. There were several vet visits. Only one of them was successful. I didn’t think I had the capacity to really love or care for anything else right now.

And yet these cats have effortlessly entrenched themselves firmly into our house and our hearts. They were impossible not to fall madly in love with.

I tell you all of this to try to convey how not on my radar the possibility of falling in love with these cats was.

I’m not sure how many nights the kittens spent outside in their little house, but when it started getting cold, something in me gave up resisting their cuteness — and they’ve been snuggled up with us inside ever since.

I finally get it, cat people.
I finally get it.

I swear that them purring in my lap is heaven on earth. It’s the kind of moment that makes the world pause and your heart swell with so much love that it aches. When one of the little kitties wanders over to me and flops itself into my lap, I feel chosen. I feel loved. I feel honoured. I hardly want to move so I don’t break the spell that’s fallen over me. They are my little treasures.

It feels like this season’s version of staring down at my perfect baby cradled in my arms while breastfeeding.

They are a dream come true that I didn’t know that I had. They were not a part of my vision. I actually have a list in my vision statement of all of the animals I wanted to one day have, and cats have never made that list. Goats and sheep were more on my radar than cats were. How could something I had no idea I ever wanted be the best part of my entire year. The best thing of all of 2025.

(And I even got a beautiful ring this year that I’d been wanting for quite some time. I just had a tiny pang of guilt admitting that getting the cats somehow felt even better than the man I love officially making it official — please don’t tell him, lol.)

But these cats have captivated me. The sound of their purrs. I without a doubt believe the people who say that a cat’s purring heals you. There have been so many moments that I’ve stared at one of these sleeping kitties and known they were a gift sent to me. A medicine for me. They carry something in their energy that I need. They are the exact medicine I need at the exact time I need it. And I really had no clue I needed it.

I feel like these cats carry so many messages for me. The way they nap and lounge and groom and luxuriate and rest is a message to me. The way they are fierce and sweet and instinctual is a message to me. The way they loudly and clearly ask for what they want is a message for me. The way they act as if they have all of the time in the world is a message to me.

And I think there is a greater message for me here as I approach 2026. That as much as I might try, I cannot truly imagine all of the beautiful things life might have in store for me. That I often have an idea of the life and future I want to head towards and create, but that life always has more wisdom and intelligence than I can come up with on my own. It reminds me that as I keep heading towards the visions I’ve written down, I must release my death grip on exactly how it’s all meant to be and unfold.

I cherish the vision I have for my life. But this year, instead of considering and strategizing about how I’m going to move closer towards it, I just want to become more open to the joy and love and ease and beauty and blessing that want to find me. Because lately, the things I don’t expect at all are the things that feel most precious.

Also, to be honest, I’m super tired. I’d like life to take the reins for a bit. I’m in the mood to be held and led and pampered a bit. A lot.

My ask of the Universe this year is to please delight me with more unexpected miracles, and I’ll do my best to stay open.

…And in 2026, may we all learn to rest and luxuriate as well as these cats do.