We’ve done it, kittens.

We’ve danced right off the edge of a decade.

Fortunately, there was another one right there to catch us, and it’s got its tail in the air.

I don’t know about you — although I have a feeling I do — but I’m welcoming this new year with my soul wide open. For some reason, 2020 already feels like a friend.

Maybe you feel the same way. Maybe you lost a cat or a parent or a dream in 2019, and the end of the year found you rocking yourself and mumbling Hail Marys or the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. (I’ve been known to soothe myself with both.) Maybe this was the year you felt something crack inside, and you started to fear you were getting jaded. Or maybe 2019 was a treasure, a strand of pearls stringing as far as the eye can see, and you’re grateful and eager for its next act. Maybe a new decade is a new kitten of hope, warm and wriggly in your arms.

We can’t know what the twenties will bring us, but I promise you we will bring our whole hearts. We will lift the fallen (very much including each other). We will bind the broken. We will sing the songs that defeat the darkness, and we will rise in the light, again and again and again.

And we will never forget the ones we’re given. Starting with a look back at 2019’s last:

Arrived: Sheriff, Outlaw, Thalia, Mazikeen, Lucifer, Hana, Cecil, Winston, Churchill, Grace, Binx, Dante, Dumpling, Wonton

Adopted: Smokey Joe, Delphine, Liam, Oscar, Clawdia, Dougal, Perseus, Jolene, Bronte, Thalia, Melville, Ruby, Carley, Lulu, Frost, Mazikeen, Lucifer, Martini Mike, Wally, Binx

Returned: Lucas

Cleared from Quarantine: Clarence, Clark, Wilson, Amy, Tiggs, Nikki, Luna, Hana, Cecil, Sesame

Banished to Ringworm: Delia, Lydia

Forever Foster Fabulosity: Kirk

Promoted to the Community Room: Periwinkle, Samantha

Promoted to the Lobby: Sophia

Promoted to Heaven: Norman

And so we look back. We look forward. We look with love on all that shimmers unknown. Onward.

More Blog Posts