This is what we call my cat's favorite toy, incorrect grammar and all.
Last Christmas, Santa brought Cali Kitten a small stuffed heart made of felt, attached to a piece of elastic, attached to a stick, and wrapped in green ribbon.
Now Cali generally loves to play, but nothing has ever compared to her love for the Bestest Toy In The Whole World. The day after Christmas, I began finding small tufts of stuffing around the house, only to discover Bestest Toy's heart was now hollow.
The next day, the heart was not only hollow, but the middle of the heart was missing, and it was now a shapeless piece of felt hanging from elastic.
As the year has progressed, it resembles a couple small scraps of felt, with several knots, evidencing the many times we have performed delicate surgeries on Bestest Toy. Still, Cali loves it. She guards it fiercely from Lilith, Dog of Wonder, and frequently drags it behind her, stick and all, meowing, alerting us all to the fact that she's the mighty hunter, and of her conquest over her prey.
So why is this toy so beloved? Why this toy, and not the various toys in the animal toy box????? She has many other toys on elastic and sticks, and we have since tried to find replacements as Bestest Toy is well on its way to being loved to death.
I have no answer for you. It just is. But then, love is just like that. We can't explain it, we can't capture it in our hands, we can't see it except through acts evidencing it, proving its illogical existence.
Yet love is a basic human need, right up there with breathing.
Except for perhaps love for a child, and in my case, chocolate -- which was love at first bite -- it's nothing instantaneous, or at least shouldn't be.
And love really isn't something that can be attained by sheer will or a demand to be loved. It just is, or it isn't. We all know we can't make someone love us, as hard as we try.
I know a year or so back, when The Secret was so popular (which I personally feel was a pop, over-simplified version of the laws of attraction), I had callers determined that if they just sat and were totally determined to make someone love them, it would happen.
Of course it doesn't work that way.
Is there a solution or a cure for love? Yes. It's called time, and, unfortunately, pain -- and a pint of Hagen Daaz.
If you want love, be lovable. No, I don't mean giving your all to someone who isn't giving back. But just like the old adage, you have to be a friend to have a friend, you have to love to be loved.
Ask for love. Noooo, don't go up to your dude and say, "Love me, please." Ask the Universe, ask God, ask your guides, your angels, ask the air.
Don't say, "Make Dude love me." Say, "Bring me love." I get many arguments and foot stomping on this one, callers saying, "But I already know who my love is!"
And I tell them, "If it's him, you win. If it isn't, he will be replaced by someone better and -- guess what -- you win!"
I think the saying is true, a life well loved is a life well lived.
YOU so deserve it. All you have to do is stop holding so tight to what isn't and open yourself up to what can be. Illogical, perhaps, but so is love.
There are so many forms of love, from romantic love, to family love, love of self, which is your first step, to, yes, inexplicalbe love for a ragged little toy (thankfully, Cali hasn't mastered the art of reading yet, so shhhhhhh, don't tell her I said that).
So I'll continue to piece Bestest Toy back together as best I can without question. After all, if Cali can inexplicably love something, just because it feels right to her, why can't you?
Meow.