Monday morning, writing a second care note for my cat

At seven on Monday morning I had my suitcase standing by the front door and I was sitting at the kitchen table, writing a note. I'd be away on a work trip from today until Friday, and my friend had agreed to stop by every day to look after the cat. I thought a single sticky note would do. One and a half cups of food morning and evening, water twice a day. I got that far, and then other things kept coming to mind. Only two treats a day, litter changed every other day, and the cord of the blind by the window gets chewed, so keep it tied up high.

I pulled out another sheet of paper and filled the back of it too. That the crying around four in the morning isn't hunger, just boredom. That the cat hides under the sofa when a stranger comes, so please don't drag it out. Even where the nearest vet is. Somewhere along the way it stopped looking like instructions and started looking like a list of my own worries copied out. It would take my friend ten minutes to read it all, and I suspected it would feel like a burden once it was done. Still, my pen wouldn't stop. I kept thinking that one more line would settle me.

Handing it over unfinished

Twenty minutes were left before I had to leave. While I was writing the last line, I opened still().

Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 55:22 (WEB)

"Cast your burden" felt a little embarrassing to read, sitting in front of two sheets of notes. I had said I was handing something over, and yet I hadn't let go of it by even a single word. I had wanted to give away everything I knew before I could feel safe, and that wasn't entrusting, it was a handover. It would have been enough that someone else's hands were there, even where a corner stayed unwritten. The cat will still cry at dawn, I suppose. Even so, reading "he will sustain you" again, I thought the one being sustained wasn't only the cat. The friend who would look after it where my hands couldn't reach was sustained too, and so was I, handing over a key on my way out.

I folded the second sheet and put it in a drawer. If my friend really needs to know something, they can call and ask, and I can tell them then. At the bottom of the first sheet I added one line: "If you're not sure, do whatever feels easiest." When I looked at it, the handwriting seemed more relaxed than it had at the start.

At eight the doorbell rang. My friend read the first sheet right there at the door, smiled, and said, "This is plenty." After I handed over the spare key I looked back, and the cat was watching us from under the sofa, only its eyes showing. It wasn't until I was dragging my suitcase into the elevator that I remembered the second sheet in the drawer, and I didn't go back up. The hand that had given away the key felt light for the first time in a while.

Today's breath — If there's something you need to ask of someone today, hand it over with one line of explanation left unwritten.