UnPawsing My Life

Let me take you on a journey to the past. The year? 2016. The month? July. The reason? Because. It was a different world back then. Everyone was wearing rompers, the nation became obsessed with a show called Stranger Things, La Croix and avocado toast took over the culinary scene and children all over the world were so hooked on Pokemon Go that they accidently walked straight off of piers and into the depths of the ocean. Anything to capture that elusive Squirtle. And while I too stocked my basement with La Croix and my closet with fun and flirty rompers, the main thing that stood out to me that year, was the beginning of my relationship with Mr. Business. It was a chilly and windy night and I wanted to capture one more Pokemon before heading to bed; so, I walked around my neighborhood looking for an Abra, a Clefairy, a Pikachu … ANYTHING that wasn’t a stupid Ratatta or Pidgey. The storm clouds began to gather and my window for optimal Pokemon catching was rapidly closing. It was then that I heard a meek “meow meow?!?” Standing in front of me was Mr Business the alley cat. He looked frightened about the impending storm. I crouched down and he ran to me. I pet him behind his ears and he purred. His breath smelled like tuna. It was best friendship at first sight. We quickly exchanged phone numbers, weaved friendship bracelets, and promised to be best friends until the end of time. When I walked home that night, I wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t capture any Pokemon; I was thrilled that I made a new friend.

This image is depressing. A vast empty world with a single Pokemon trainer fruitlessly walking in the hopes of eventually crossing paths with someone, something … anything. When Pokemon fever first hit the world, I resisted and smoothly dismissed it, referring to anyone who played it as a mindless follower. Then 2 weeks later, I quickly assimilated in the hopes of gaining society’s approval. I was not disappointed. The game was fun, for exactly 2 months. Then I immediately deleted it like 90% of users. I’ll forever remember Pokemon Go fondly as it was the catalyst for me meeting Mr. Business.

2016 also stands out to me because it was the year that I began my journey into optometry. And while I had a busy life of Netflix, Pokemon catching, skipping the gym, feeling guilt about skipping the gym, and romper shopping; I decided that I wanted to dedicate my full energy into school and only school, to ensure that I would become the number one optometry master (that’s another Pokemon reference … I can’t turn it off. Help me). Dedicating all my energy into Optometry school meant that I had to put everything else in my life on hold. I told myself that would be fine. So I hit the pause button on my life outside of optometry school with the intention of unpausing it in 2020 once I became a licensed optometrist. I mean, what was the worst that could happen?

Sigh.

Let’s fastforward to 2018. School is great and I feel like I’m becoming more skilled with every new patient that I see. But my life outside of school is still ‘paused’ and I’m starting to understand why that’s a bad thing. You see, I haven’t really had much contact with Mr. Business over the last year. When school first started, he was leaving me dead birds of encouragement in front of my door on a regular basis (and one time a dead mole, but I wasn’t into that). I was appreciative, of course, but I kind of ignored the gestures and kept my focus on school. This past year, I haven’t received a single dead bird. Not one. And I’ve seen him catch birds around the neighborhood too. I shudder to think who he’s giving them to now. Moreover, I have noticed that Mr. Business runs away from my house whenever I get home from school. I tried to pretend that it wasn’t a big deal, but I had a epiphany last week when I was adult trick-or-treating (Monster Bash!) in German Village. I was admiring the Wizard of Oz decorations of one of the host houses of the night when a beautiful white cat named Jojo ran up to me. I crouched down and Jojo purred as I pet her behind the ears. She tried to crawl into my costume and we shared a laugh. Then I felt a pain in my stomach. This was how it used to feel with Mr. Business. I had a great thing going with him but then I let the relationship dissolve because I was too focused on myself and the optometry bubble. In fact, it wasn’t only Mr. Business that I ignored the past 2+ years. I’m pretty sure my family and pre-optometry friends think I dropped off of the face of the earth. In general, I have been terrible about engaging in the outside world if it doesn’t directly tie into optometry school. I figured I could pause my life for four years and the world would wait for me unchanged, but that was just me being naive. The world is ever changing and a lot of things in my life have moved on without me; one of them being Mr. Business.

 

This is the last time Mr Business took a nap in my backyard. As the weather has gotten chillier, so has his disposition. Things are tense between us and I don’t know if they’ll ever go back to the way they used to be. It’s sad, but I only have myself to blame. On an unrelated note …Is it just me, or does he look like he’s putting on winter weight? Or maybe he just stopped caring. Either way, Mr Business isn’t the trim bird hunter he used to be when we first met. I often see Mr Business hanging out in my other neighbor’s back yards and it makes me wonder if they all feed him treats. He might have a whole treat system rigged up where he’s eating fancy feast 5 times a day with everyone being blissfully unaware pawns in his dastardly scheme. Maybe my lack of participation in this system is part of the reason why Mr. Business isn’t so keen on me nowadays.

Being in school feels like being in a protective bubble. It feels like the outside world doesn’t exist and that nothing else matters. But that’s just an illusion. My family still exists (I think … maybe I’ll call them tomorrow), my impact on the world still matters, my decisions still have an impact on myself and others and what I do with my time is important. Optometry school certainly is challenging and time consuming, but it isn’t an excuse to forget other aspects of my life and my other responsibilities. It may have unfortunately taken a broken relationship with Mr Business to wake me up, but now I see that ‘pausing’ my life was never really an option. I can’t ignore the outside world while I train for my career. I still need to live in and be a part of this world, otherwise everything will pass me by. So today, I am officially leaving the protective optometry bubble and unpausing my life. I’m going to rekindle relationships, focus on my health and well-being, work on collecting more Pokemon, focus more on the things happening in the world around me and consider what I can do with my time now to make a positive impact on my life and others. And most importantly, I’m going to win back Mr. Business’ approval with a can of fancy feast a day because I’m pretty sure he can be easily bought. Well I hope so at least, because I miss my furry friend.