By Rory Walsh
This is the story of Margot, a recently rescued tuxedo cat, and how she curled up in my heart and broke it open.
The last pet I’d had was a magnificent blue betta fish named Haku. He’d been my only roommate for a couple years, but eventually I had to give him away so I could spend the summer overseas. I was 30. It did not escape me that by the time my mother was 30 she’d had four kids, and here I was shedding the responsibility of a fish you buy in a plastic cup.
At that time in my life, I felt an urgent need to keep my world small. If there was no one in my life depending on me day to day, then there was no one I could let down. I had a small group of amazing friends and as long as it stayed small enough, I could keep up with all of them and remember everyone’s birthday. My family were all in different states, and if I didn’t have anything pinning me down, I could visit them at least once or twice a year. I was perpetually single but mostly unbothered by it. I enjoyed my own company and hadn’t met anyone whose presence I thought I’d prefer to my solitude, or to that comfortable sense of control.
I had so much love in my life but at arm’s length, and that worked for me. Love wasn’t something that I came home to, but something I carried with me. I got to spend a lot of time with my niece when she was little, even though she was a five-hour train ride away. I got to fly to the other side of the world once or twice a year without worrying about anything back home.
I felt lightweight, nimble, and untethered. Only when I moved to Ann Arbor in 2018 did that same strategy start to make me feel adrift.
Ready for change, I was clueless as to where to start. I guess I hadn’t realized I’d let things get as bad as they did, because the people I met here were so kind and welcoming, they made me feel like I could be myself in ways I’d been avoiding for years. I was eager to pull the rest of my personality out of storage, to find some ballast in my life, and figure out a new way to be me.
In April of 2019, something clicked. I needed a cat.
A dog would be too much, too soon. Another fish, not enough. But a cat—a cat would depend on me just enough to help me remember how to do this.
I hit the jackpot. She was a street cat who’d had enough kittens to earn the nickname “Mama Kitty.” She insisted on being let inside a Detroit apartment building during a vicious cold snap the previous January. The residents set her up in the laundry room, thinking she was feral, but soon learned she was a total sweetheart.
She was scruffy, shy, and had the tip of her left ear snipped off from when she’d been trapped, spayed, and released. She was also self-possessed and positively regal. She needed an old-fashioned, important-sounding name, so I called her Margot. When I got her, her fur was just long enough not to call her a shorthair, but the indoor, adored life agreed with her, and she was soon luxuriously fluffy. She loved playing but hated all toys, except catnip mice and my bare feet. She ate too fast, so I had to buy a robot that gave her four small meals throughout the day. She started coming to the door to greet me when I got home in the evening, purring her loud, ragged purr. At night, I could set my hand palm up on the bed, and she would set her head on it and sleep curled up next to me.
Of course, I did still have to travel sometimes, and I worried about Margot terribly when I left. I recruited people I really trusted as cat sitters and told them that she would probably hide at first but could be lured out with treats. “She loves people, she just has a hard time making herself vulnerable,” I said, and immediately had to suppress a laugh at how I’d accidentally described myself.
The love and trust I shared with Margot made more love and trust seem possible. And she hadn’t just made me think I could invite another person into our world, she set a bar for how wonderful that person would have to be. So, when I met a cute guy at work, I took some time and considered what I could tell about his character. I noticed that he could find a way to connect with any of our coworkers, from age 22 to 72. He got excited about their interests, and nerdy about his own. He’d show around interesting books he found. Everyone I’d come to like so much at work liked him—the quirky, friendly, chill, and cheerful guy with the buff physique and gorgeous hair… maybe that last part was just me.
It took me months to talk myself into it, but I finally asked him out for drinks. We had a great time, hugged, and parted. I had to process it for a few days, but thanks to Margot, I finally understood that I could have something for myself, and it wouldn’t mean there was less of me for others. It might mean there would be more.
That Friday, with a second date set for after work, I rushed around my apartment getting ready to catch the bus. I looked over at Margot sitting on my desk chair. I went over to her, kneeling down to give her a kiss and a snuggle. I told her that something might happen, someone might come over, and if they did, it might be scary for her. Looking her in her sweet golden eyes I said, “I want you to know it was you who made me brave enough.”
He did come over, and kept coming over, and soon he and Margot were best friends. She barely even hid–I’d never had anything to worry about. I’d picked the right person.
At the time I adopted Margot, she was the biggest step out of my comfort zone I could imagine. Even though we lost her to cancer near the end of 2021, and less than two months after I lost my father, she continues to inspire me to expand my heart. There is no such thing as enough time with someone you love. And there’s no such thing as too much love to add to your life.
P.S. Haku the fish lived an unusually long and presumably happy life in his new home. My husband and I adopted a kitten in the spring of 2022. Chili is a tremendous delight, who teaches us many life lessons of his own.
Rory Walsh earned her doctorate in 2017 from the University of Oregon. She spent five years at the University of Michigan leading the Undergraduate Research Fellows Program for the Nam Center for Korean Studies, and mentored dozens of students working on original research projects. She hosts two podcasts, “What Are Jobs? And How Do You Get Them?,” interviewing people with various jobs and educational backgrounds, and “How Did You Get Here?,” discussing the lives and research of prominent Korean Studies scholars. She is a certified Qigong instructor and a coach specializing in helping undergraduate and graduate students navigate their academic journeys. Walsh is also an archaeologist who has worked in Korea and China, and is particularly proud of her book, Mahan and Baekje: The Complex Origins of Korean Kingdoms. You can learn more about Walsh’s teaching, coaching, and podcast hosting at momentuscoaching.com.
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This is the story of Margot, a recently rescued tuxedo cat, and how she curled up in my heart and broke it open.