Heartbreak can be backward or forward looking. Backward looking in replaying how you meet, your initial date, them seeing you cry for the first time, when you went to the museum for their birthday, how you miss going grocery shopping together. Forward looking in mourning the life you could have had together. How you imagined getting married and having kids, but neither of those things will be happening and now you have to start over. If you’re upset for long enough the forward looking heartbreak becomes this weird present-day alternate reality you live in moments when you say to yourself, “I bet we would have moved in together by now.”
“Catsitting” is about the sad present catching up to your diverted future. In it the narrator reflects on a time with their ex cat sitting for another couple and the bubble they got to inhabit together. Here they could fantasize they were older, more grounded, wealthier, and together.
The couple falls out of love and breaks up. Time passes and the narrator no longer feels at home. They sound almost paralyzed as if making any movement or decision with their life would be admitting defeat. When someone is broken up and does not want to be the only weapon they have is the ability to be petulant and deny their conditions. Changing conditions requires accepting them.
