Cat Woman

Despite first appearances, this piece was not written to attract attention or in an attempt at humor. It was borne out of the deepest of frustrations with my life. Try as I might to deflect blame or to project it onto others, the true source of all the ills in my life, the hatred, the regret, the anxiety, the myopia, the cowardice, and the wrong focus, starts and stops entirely with me.

When I use the term "cat woman", many will likely have an image of Halle Berry pop into their mind. All slinky, lithe, sexy, and dangerous. If you are of a certain age like myself, perhaps a slightly different image forms, conjured up from somewhere in the deeper recesses of your mind. Yet I am referring to a foe of an altogether different stripe. One much more sinister, menacing, and life destroying. An enemy called loneliness.

My pastor talked recently that the Bible makes it clear that we were not designed to live life on our own. The deep involvement of others in our lives is essential to keep us strong and engaged, to keep us on track, to help us maintain our spiritual walk, and to maximize the quality of our living. As I heard his words, I certainly understood and appreciated them as obvious truth, yet as I get older, I find that I am tending to isolate myself more and more from others. The effects of this isolation are not something that manifests itself in an immediate impact in my mindset or level of joy. It is a process, so slow, that the issues and problems are not noticed day-to-day, but only looking back over a longer period. I fear that I am not too far away from becoming not the Catwoman, but the sad caricature embodied by the cat woman.