I never thought I'd become a cat person. For as long as I could remember, I'd always been firmly in the dog camp — cats were undeniably cute, sure, but they weren't for me. Or so I thought.
It started on a quiet summer evening. My husband and son were away, and I'd barely kicked off my shoes when I heard it — a sound from the living room. I froze. Had I imagined that? Then, out of the corner of my eye, a small pair of ears appeared on the landing. I turned slowly, and there she was.
Chinx. My neighbour's black and white cat, sitting perfectly still, staring at me with the unblinking confidence only a cat can pull off.
I said hello, half-expecting her to bolt. Instead, she padded right toward me and wound herself in a figure of eight around my ankles. That evening, as I ate dinner and melted into the sofa in front of the TV, she settled in beside me like she'd done it a hundred times before.
She came back the next day. And the day after that. Before long, Chinx had essentially moved in — popping home only for meals and the litter tray, then returning to claim her spot on our sofa. Cat treats quietly appeared on my weekly shopping list. Toys materialised. She'd chase them around the house, then shadow us from room to room like a small, furry bodyguard.
She became the fourth member of our family.
She had an uncanny ability to sense when I was struggling. On the hard days, she'd simply appear and refuse to leave my side. No fuss, no drama — just there. Steadfast and warm.
Then, one midsummer week, she didn't come.
I waited a few days before texting her owner. He replied almost immediately, full of apologies — he'd moved out the week before and hadn't thought to let me know. My heart dropped like a stone. No more Chinx padding through the door. No more figure of eights around my feet.
He was kind enough to bring her round one last time so we could say a proper goodbye. I held it together. And then, for the better part of a week, I cried every single night.
I raised the idea of getting a cat with my husband. He was hesitant — the responsibility, the commitment, all the reasons people talk themselves out of things. He tried, gently but firmly, to talk me out of it.
Reader, I wore him down.
By winter, after what I'll diplomatically call persistent conversations, he finally looked at me and said: "Alright. Let's get a cat."
I didn't waste a second. Research mode: activated. I settled on a British Shorthair — calm, gentle, exactly the temperament we needed. And it had to be a kitten; I wanted to raise her from the very beginning.
Timing, however, was everything. My son was heading back to college after four years away — disrupted, like so much else, by the pandemic. Two enormous life changes at once felt like too much. I needed to be careful.
I reached out to breeders and waited. One had a litter due in March, which meant a kitten in May — just right. I became a devoted follower of every photo, every post, every story the breeder shared of that litter. I sent messages just often enough to make sure she knew exactly how serious I was.
Then in April, a message landed in my inbox: she didn't have a kitten for me.
My stomach lurched — but before I could spiral, she added that another litter was due in June. A kitten by August. I exhaled slowly, made my peace with the wait, and kept watching her posts with a quiet, hopeful obsession — scanning every photo for a tiny face that might, just might, be mine.
Then, on an ordinary afternoon in mid-May, my phone buzzed.
It was the breeder. One of the kittens from the March litter had become available — the one she'd been holding back to continue her breeding line. She'd changed her mind. There was, she mentioned carefully, something I should know: at eleven weeks old, the kitten had developed an eye infection. She'd recovered fully, but since then, her left eye had watered slightly more than the right.
I didn't even pause.
This was a living creature, not something plucked from a shelf. A little watery eye wasn't going to change a thing.
There was one small complication with timing. Because of the infection, her second vaccination had been pushed back. She'd receive it on the 20th of June, followed by a week's observation — which meant I could bring her home any day from the 27th.
I looked at the calendar. The 28th of June is my birthday.
It was decided.
The breeder asked that we visit once before making it official, just to be sure. We went the very next weekend. When we arrived, two kittens were pottering about — one noticeably bigger, one smaller and fizzing with sociable energy, already making friends with our ankles.
The bigger one, the breeder told us, was ours to consider.
She smiled as she described her. The bossy one. A kitten who knew her own mind with absolute certainty — none of her siblings dared touch a toy she'd claimed, or edge toward the feeding tray while she was using it. She ruled that litter with quiet, imperious authority.
I was completely smitten.
My boss baby.
For her name, I wanted something with meaning. I landed on Lolita — a nod to the legendary Indian actress Lalita Pawar, who had famously developed an eye condition later in life. It felt fitting. Poetic, even.
My husband thought it was, at best, a questionable joke.
After considerable debate — which I'll generously describe as a negotiation — we settled on Lola.
The 28th of June arrived wrapped in birthday messages, calls, and notifications. Friends and family rang throughout the day, and I was warm and grateful and barely listening, because every atom of my excitement was pointed in exactly one direction: today was the day my floofball was coming home.
It's been nearly a year since Lola walked through our door — padding in like she already owned the place, because she did.
We cannot imagine what life looked like before her. We don't really want to.