Some months ago I wrote about wanting a cat and never doing anything about it. I concluded the wanting was decorative — that I liked the idea more than I wanted the responsibility.

So I went to a shelter. Partly to settle it.

What happened

It was a Saturday. There were fourteen cats. I was there about ninety minutes, which is longer than I planned.

There was a grey one with a bent ear, maybe four years old, who had been there seven months. The volunteer said adult cats move slowly — everyone comes in wanting a kitten. She sat near me, not on me, for most of the time I was there.

I did not take her home.

Why not, honestly

Not for the reasons I'd been using.

The travel thing turned out to be mostly solvable; several people there had arrangements that sounded entirely normal. The sunlight thing was, the volunteer said politely, not a real consideration. My list of obstacles survived about twenty minutes of contact with someone who knew anything.

The actual reason is that I wasn't prepared to decide that day, and I'd gone in with a quiet assumption that the right animal would make the decision for me. That's not how it works. Nothing picks you. You have to do the choosing, and I had arrived without having done it.

What I got wrong in the first piece

I'd framed it as wanting the idea rather than the thing. That was too neat, and a bit self-flattering — there's something almost admirable about diagnosing your own shallowness.

The truer version is duller. I want it, and I keep deferring the decision, because deferring is free and deciding isn't. The two-year gap isn't evidence of fake wanting. It's evidence that a decision with no deadline doesn't get made.

Where it is now

I'm going back this Saturday. The grey one may be gone, which would be fine — that's the system working.

I've told two people I'm going, which I've noticed is the only mechanism that has ever made me do anything.