.crazy cat lady.

Tonight one of my best friends got engaged. He is the third person I know to get engaged in the last three weeks. My other best friend tied the knot just over a year ago. Three of my previous flatmates are now either married or engaged. And about half a dozen of my comrades, my chums, my buddies are now in serious relationships, engagements pending.

It’s not that I am not excited for my friends who are entering into wedded bliss, holy matrimony, wedlock, kinship. Quite the contrary, I am exceptionally pleased for them, over the moon, just bursting with joy and I mean that literally without a hint of sarcasm – I’m serious.

However, despite my happiness for these friends of mine, I cannot help but come to one conclusion about my future. I am destined to become a crazy cat lady. A spinster that shares her one bedroom apartment with one hundred and thirteen cats. Cats of various breeds, including Abyssinians, the California Spangled Cat, the Norwegian Forest Cat, the Selkirk Rex, a Tonkinese and perhaps even a Ukrainian Levkoy to complete my cat clan.

My apartment will be full of scratching posts and porcelain figurines of cats, I will have a kitty litter sandpit. My precious little ones will only ever drink Evian and eat homemade, organic, low GI food. I will regularly play the ‘Crazy Cat Lady’ boardgame with only my most intelligent cats (although all of them have their own endearing, special qualities) and will wear my crazy cat lady necklace only on the grandest of occasions. Heck! I might even join the crazy cat lady society and buy a crazy cat lady action figure.

I’m lucky that my recently acquired flatmates don’t like cats and won’t let me get one. Adopting a cat would certainly be the first step on a downward spiral staircase.

Obviously I don’t really believe that I am destined to become the neighbour hood crazy cat lady. But with the amount of relationships that are transpiring around me it does make me think about dating, courtship, engagement, marriage, etc.

Honestly, the thought of being in a relationship _freaks_me_out_. Twelve months ago it would have been the exact opposite, I would have jumped at the chance to go on a date. But now it’s a different story, the idea of it makes me want to run for the hills. It’s not that I don’t want to get married, have 2.3 children, a house with a white picket fence and a golden retriever. I just don’t want that to happen as soon as I originally thought.

A few years ago I was like “yeah, ill get married by the time I’m 22, pop out a few kids before I’m 30, then work on my career, retire and become a grey nomad travelling the country with my husband”. Now my 22nd birthday is just around the corner and I’m not married and it doesn’t look like it’ll be happening in the near future. And surprisingly, I am 100% okay with that. I’m enjoying being single.

There’s so much you can do when you are single, it certainly has its benefits. Once you are married, you are mah-reeeeeed. It’s for life! You will never be single again. There’s less responsibility when you are single, you can spend your paycheck on whatever you desire, steal all of the blankets and pick your nose without anyone complaining! I am definitely enjoying many of the aspects of single life. Marriage is certainly in the future and while I look forward to it, there are so many other things to look forward to and I don’t want to miss those because I am too focused on getting into a relationship.

So as I approach ‘wedding season’ I will be keeping far far away from any RSPCAs or Pet Stores. I am sure that one day my compulsion to adopt cats will eventually subside when I am ready to get into a relationship and God sets it all up. That’s what I love about my friends who are recently engaged or married - God was (and is) the centre of their relationships and their relationships were God ordained, God appointed. Until this happens for me, I am perfectly content living the single lifestyle, cats or no cats.

.one of those faces.

Apparently I have 'one of those faces'.

Pffffffft.

I don't understand what that is supposed to mean. I’ve had a few people say to me that they have met someone who looks like and reminds them of me. Numerous others have said that I look like someone, but they can’t quite put their finger on who that someone is. To assist myself in coming to a conclusion on the definition of this ‘one of those faces’ statement, I have formulated a few hypothesises.

Hypothesis # 1: I am a You Tube celebrity. One of my flatmates posted a video of me on the sly dancing around my room in my most derelict pj's singing 'Respect' by Aretha Franklin into my hairbrush. I am yet to be informed.

Hypothesis # 2: I am the subject of a reality TV show...not dissimilar to the movie the 'Truman Show' with Jim Carey. I live in a manufactured world, all my friends are actors and are paid to hang out with me (I am sure my parents have seriously done this at some point) and I am completely oblivious to the fact.

Hypothesis # 3: My past is catching up to me and I've recently featured on an episode of Australia's most wanted.

Hypothesis # 4: A scientist decided that I'm just amazingly fabulous, stole a sample of my DNA and has cloned me. Hence, there are a number of Zarettes positioned around the globe.

Yes, I realise that none of these hypothesises could possibly be true, except for hypothesis #1 - its only a matter of time before I get sprung. But for serious, why do I often get people saying that I have ‘one of those faces’??

All my life I’ve tried to stand out and not be a carbon copy of another. Nevertheless, I recognise that this attempt to stand out has been an epic fail on my behalf. My desire to stand out from the crowd has involved me copying others who ‘stood out’. As a result I have become the one thing I have never wanted to be - a replica, an imitation, a pair of Gucci sunglasses retailing for $2.99 at a stall in Bali.

The last few years and namely the last few months have been a period in my existence where I have been genuinely discovering who I am. My likes and dislikes, my strengths and weaknesses, what makes me laugh and cry, where I fit into the world and the part I was born to live out. These discoveries have only become clear to me as I draw closer to the heart of God and he reveals more and more of his heart and my heart to me.

Despite the fact that I am gradually becoming increasingly secure in my identity, understanding the various facets of my personality and valuing my own uniqueness, I had an interesting reaction to these comments that friends of mine have met a person that reminds me of them. I felt as if my identity was being challenged. I wanted to know who this person was! I wanted to see what they looked like, their mannerisms, what they spoke about, etc. I wanted to compare myself to…well….myself. To see if this person who resembles me is actually anything like the reflection I see in the mirror.

I’m quite fond of the following statement:

“Always remember, that you are an individual – just like everybody else”

It makes me laugh. Not one of those laughs that you hold in and once you reach a point where you can’t contain it anymore you explode - making a noise resembling that of an elephant with bronchitis trumpeting. Not even a knee-slapper or snort-inducing laugh. More like one of those ironic laughs where you have that moment of realisation “Yeah…that’s true…ha”.

We are all individuals; there isn’t anybody else on this planet that has been created like you. You are not a counterfeit, duplication or a hologram. Until we embrace this and truly comprehend it, I think it is in actuality quite difficult to recognise and establish our identity and walk into the purposes God has planned for each of us. Our purpose is inextricably linked to our identity; we were created to live out God’s will for our lives. How can Gods will be fulfilled if we are not the people he created us to be?

So I might have ‘one of those faces’, but God knows my face and even more than that – he knows my identity, in him is my identity and through him this ‘face’ is going to bring him glory.

“We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.” ~ Mother Teresa