My Cat Saved Me When I Couldn't Go Home: How Living With My Beloved Cat Changed My Perspective on Going Home

My beloved cats are waiting for me at home. For cat owners, I think that's the strongest reason to go home. The family I grew up in was quite turbulent, so I used to find the act of "returning home from an outing" quite painful.

But living with my beloved cats and having beings waiting for me has drastically reduced the anguish I felt when choosing to "go home."

My adolescence, when my only mode of transportation was my mother's car

I grew up in a very rural area where you couldn't go anywhere without a car. Everyone around me used bicycles until they owned a car. However, I was born with a heart condition that made me easily short of breath, so I couldn't ride a bicycle, and my parents had to drive me to and from school every day.

Of course, I'm grateful to my mother, who didn't work in an era without remote work and devoted herself to driving me around. But as I grew up, the feeling of suffocation from not being able to go anywhere without my mother's intervention grew stronger.

When you're a student, events like going to a fireworks festival with a boy you like, secretly from your parents, happen, don't they? Even I, an introvert, had the opportunity to experience such wonderful events.

However, in my case, I couldn't even get to the fireworks venue without my parents' permission. It took 15 minutes by car to get from my house to the station, so relying on public transportation was also difficult.

"It would have been easier if I could have told my parents, 'There's a boy I like, and I want to go to the fireworks festival with him...'" My mother was the type who hated her daughter's romantic relationships. As soon as I mentioned a boy's name, her expression would darken, and sometimes she wouldn't drive me, saying, "Because you're important to me."

For me, in the midst of adolescence, being restricted in movement and social interaction was a big deal. Even when I rebelled against my mother, my only means of transportation was her car, so I devised a way to get her to drive me without upsetting her.

I started to get rides by mentioning my friends' names and telling my mother fabricated stories about imaginary friends I had created in my head.

Trauma from my school days made me dread returning home after going out.

But, you know, lies teenagers tell always get exposed. One day, I lied about having a sleepover with friends and had my first sleepover with my boyfriend. However, I made a careless mistake in answering a question my mother asked me in the car on the way back, and my lie was exposed.

After that incident, my mother started checking my emails, and I spent days unable to easily leave the house. I was literally a bird in a cage.

Perhaps because of that trauma from my school days, even after I got my own car, I started to feel uneasy when returning home from an outing. Even though I had a means of transportation and could go out anytime, anxiety would well up inside me, wondering if I would be unable to leave the house again once I returned.

Even when I had a car and lived at home, my curfew was 7 PM. My father, who insisted that everyone in the family should follow the same routine, would get upset if the family wasn't together for dinner.

On such occasions, I would get a "come home" call from my mother, who was fed up with my father's yelling, so I would reluctantly go home with a troubled heart.

My fear of "coming home" eased after I welcomed cats into my life.

After getting married and moving out of my parents' house, I experienced "life without being controlled by others" for the first time. It was strange and joyful to not be scolded even if I stayed out until late at night, and I started going out at night more often.

Still, when it was time to go home, my heart would flutter. I no longer felt like I could go home, and I started spending time in supermarket and convenience store parking lots.

My beloved cats helped alleviate that difficulty in living. Cats are independent, so they probably wouldn't be lonely without me. In fact, they might even be more comfortable alone. I initially thought that when I first got my cats, but my opinion completely changed as we lived together.

When I got home from work, my beloved cat would run up to me and rub against my feet. As if to make up for the time we weren't together, she would stay close by my side.

Seeing her behavior made me happy, thinking, "There's someone who wants me, even a person like me," and I started to think, "I want to go home quickly so this cat can be happy."

At first, it was difficult to go home without stopping at a convenience store for tens of minutes to get my mind in the "go home" mood, but I stopped procrastinating on my return home and dragging it out endlessly.

Saying "I'm home" to an empty space

When I first adopted Jiji, my first cat, I was a part-timer. I got home earlier than my husband, so I never said "Tadaima" (I'm home) when I returned. However, as I spent time with Jiji, who was eagerly awaiting my return, I naturally felt the desire to say "Tadaima" to her.

Saying "Tadaima" to a space where no human was present was a first for me. It felt strange at first, but when I saw Jiji running up to me in response to my voice, I thought, "I'm glad I started saying it."

More than 10 years later, I still say "Tadaima" to my beloved cats. Since I became a writer, I don't go out much anymore, but when I come home from shopping, "Tadaima" just naturally comes out. Sometimes I'm surprised by my own change, thinking, "I've really changed."

My beloved cats are waiting, so I have to go home. I love those moments when that comfortable urgency prompts me to return home. I was able to love "spending time at home" only because of my beloved cats.

Every time I see my beloved cats running up to me, meowing cheerfully, when I come home, I feel a "family love" that was absent in the family I grew up in.

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