Stress, forget, repeat

I guess it’s good that we fairly quickly forget how stressful something was, like pain. That is unless we’re silly enough to get into the same situation again. For the past several weeks I have been trying to find someone to look after our cat while we're away for Christmas. Like us, most of our friends here are also away visiting family or friends at that time of year and are, therefore, unavailable. I got to the point of not sleeping through the night. I would lie there thinking about cancelling the trip, justifying the cat’s trauma from being in a tiny cattery cage for the duration, wondering if she would be ok with just a bag of food on the floor of the kitchen and a bag of little on the floor of the spare room, contemplating begging random neighbours to let themselves into my house. Do I need to point out that stress and lack of sleep make me a little crazy? Well, last night a saviour, an out-of-colleague of my husband’s, called to ask if she could stay in our house while she’s in the city visiting her family! Now I am writing this so that I don’t repeat my stress. Memo to self: getting a cat-sitter at Christmas time is more stressful than it’s worth – I think. (I’ll have to confirm that once I get back from my trip – presumably the visit will not be exponentially better because it’s Christmastime since we’re not a religious, sentimental family/friend group.)