A letter to my ex

Dear Mary

There are many kinds of days. Some of them are really good and other days are rainy and gloomy. But there isn’t a single day without me thinking of you. Sometimes you’re just a quick glimpse in my mind. For a minute I might feel how your gentle hands pet me or I hear you telling me how lovely a cat I am. Sometimes it’s almost like you’re more than just a distant memory, when you’re so alive in my mind that I might think you really are with me.

You never are here, though. Not since that day.

Do you still remember what happened to us? How life separated us?

But I would like to start from the beginning, not from the end. Because the day when I met you is the most precious day in my whole life. In some way, it’s also the very worst, but I didn’t know back then what would happen. I had grown up in a dark, little room with my mum and other cats. There were dozens of us kittens. Many people visited the room, but one day it was you who stepped inside. I remember I was very afraid of you at first. I hissed and hid behind my mum. Nonetheless you chose me and took me with you to your home.

The first night at that new place was the worst.

I was afraid of you, of everything. There were so many new smells, everything looked so big and weird and my mum and the other cats weren’t there with me. I meowed and searched for my mum everywhere, but there wasn’t anything that would have brought me comfort and shelter in your place.

Only you.

You held me in your lap, petted me and spoke quietly to me in that gentle voice of yours until I fell asleep. And you still didn’t leave me alone. You helped me through that horrible night when I felt just so utterly and completely alone.

It took some weeks, but I slowly got used to my new home. Finally it started to feel like home.

And I got used to you. I got to know you, I even started to like you. You became my everything. There wasn’t anybody at home when you were away (and I didn’t ever understand why you had to leave every morning) and I felt alone and bored. When you were with me, you played with me, gave me food, and petted me. I liked to sleep beside you and wake you up in the mornings. I hardly ever left you alone at home, I always came after you. When you ate, I sat on the chair next to you, when you read, I lay on your stomach, always watching what you were doing. I loved you like my only family and you never failed to tell me how adorable and nice a cat I was, how much you loved me.

Then, one day, everything changed. The day when that man moved into our house. He was tall and pale and you really liked to be with him all the time. You called him Mark. Suddenly it wasn’t just you and I anymore; there was always Mark, too. He sat next to you on the couch, slept beside you, did everything with you. When I think about it now, I guess he wasn’t really so bad. Mark tried to pet me and even make friends with me. But I was never able to let him into my world. Our world.

I was jealous, yes, but I had many reasons. You weren’t here only for me anymore since you spent all time with him. You didn’t pet me so often anymore. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in your bed since Mark said that it is unhygienic or something. I felt a little lonelier day by day. You didn’t seem to mind.

I thought that was hard. Oh, it really wasn’t and I wish now I had known it back then. Everything was still relatively nice, even though there was Mark.

At first I didn’t notice anything when your belly started growing. These kinds of things aren’t so important to us cats. I was in fact happy because you started to be more time at home and I had more time together with you, without Mark. Though there were many signs of an approaching change, I just didn’t notice them. You and he seemed to be so excited about something and almost ridiculous happy. And you brought some new, funny furniture into the house.

Just days before everything started finally falling completely apart, you petted and hugged me and told me for the last time how much you loved me. I loved you, too, and I tried to tell it to you by licking your nose. You laughed and sounded so happy - and for a moment I was again just a little kitten, not an adult cat.

A couple of days later you left home for many days. I missed you so much. But I finally made friends with Mark during those long days.

When you finally returned home, you had something… no, someone with you. I didn’t even notice it at first until the baby in your arms starting crying. I hated the sound immediately, I hated how you completely started ignoring me when he uttered even a sound. Mark was even worse; he was always near that little thing.

There were some things I understood very quickly about this new intruder. First, you and Mark called him Mattie. Secondly, you both loved him very much. Thirdly and lastly, I couldn’t stand him. He cried, smelled bad - and most importantly, stole all your time.

Before I even noticed it, I was completely ignored. You didn’t have any time for me. Mark didn’t care enough to notice me. Suddenly the only and most important thing at home was little Mattie.

Maybe I didn’t like him, but I really didn’t mean it when I one day went to see how the little one looked like and accidentally scratched him. He started screaming even before it and I was just startled.

Well, you didn’t understand it at all.

And when Mark and you started yelling at me, I became really frightened and for the first time in years, I hissed at you.

I regret it - the hissing - more than anything.

But I guess it didn’t even matter. All you worried parents could see, was the scratch on Mattie’s face, all you could hear was his crying.

I didn’t know how it happened, but after this, you could hardly even look at me anymore. When I think about it nowadays, I guess you regretted it, too. But it was too late. I don’t know how much you wanted it, but it didn’t take more than days when my whole world fell apart and that day dawned.

They were some new faces (an old lady and two teenagers) who came to our home and they took me away with them. You said goodbye and petted me for the very last time. Then I was forced to start my new life with them, in a strange new place and amongst strange new people.

I will never forget the look in your eyes, how you looked that morning. There were you, Mark and Mattie at the door. Unfortunately I didn’t have a place in your perfect, little family.

“Dangerous”, you said. I never hurt you. Even the little accident with Mattie was just an accident. And still you let me down, abandoned me.

It has been years since then. I’m an old cat already and live nicely in this new house. There was also another cat before, but she passed away years ago. I’m pretty sure it will soon be my turn but we cats are too proud to think about it before we have to. My life has been nice, I have always had enough food and water and my new family has taken good care of me.

I’m not bitter that you gave me away, that you couldn’t trust me anymore. Those feelings have already faded away during all these years. Nowadays I’m just a little disappointed and wistful when I think of you. You said you loved me and still abandoned me so easily. I guess you just loved Mattie more than me.

But I have never stopped loving you.

I love my new life, home and family, too. But I also love you.

I hope you became happy, that you and Mark didn’t break up, that Mattie turned out to be a fine boy and you had more kids.

But I also hope you haven’t forgotten me.

Because I could never forget you.

I had the best days of my life with you.

I still can’t believe we are really in Hawaii

Dear diary

”Everything is so exotic and amazing!” was my first thought when I woke up this morning. Although we have already been here for five days, I still can’t believe we are really in Hawaii!

I was the sleepyhead again today, everyone woke up before me. It was about ten o’clock already when my mum woke me up. I didn’t even have time to eat my breakfast properly before my little sister started complaining that she wants go to the beach already. But she had to wait for a moment, because I’m really too lazy to hurry because of her...

It took a while, but after I had finished my breakfast and dressed up, we finally left for the beach near to our hotel. Sadly dad had a migraine (he said it was because of the heat - and I have to admit, the weather was way too hot for my taste) so he stayed at the hotel. We spent about two hours on the beach. My little sister, Emma, really had fun, deciding by the way she was smiling all the time; when she was making a sandcastle and a particularly big wave hit the beach, or when she was swimming with her new swim ring. She even made friends with some little German girl, even though they didn’t even speak the same language! Emma spoke Finnish of course and that other girl German, but it didn’t disturb their playing in any way. Children are pretty amazing in their own way, aren’t they? Anyway, I sunbathed the whole time and read some silly magazine. I’m really not going to forget the sunscreen ever again like I did on the first day!

We checked at the hotel if dad was already alright, but he still wanted to rest. Mum also wanted to stay in our hotel for a while room and sleep a little. But my little sister - no way. She was already going to the hotel swimming pool. And because my parents wanted to take a nap and they are “old and frail” as they said, it was me who had to go with Emma.

After all we had the pretty good “sister-time” together. We swam in the swimming pool and mainly just played the fool. There was a little kiosk next to the swimming pool and we bought ice cream. Emma dropped her ice cream accidentally but the salesman in the kiosk was really nice and gave her a new ice cream for free! And then we swam a little more since Emma never seems to get tired of it.

After a couple of hours she finally agreed to go back to our hotel room. Mum and dad were still sleeping (What about “a quick nap”?) so we decided to wake them up. Mum was just like “oh, how did I sleep this much”, but dad still had a migraine, if just slightly and it didn’t bother him so badly anymore. We spent some time in our hotel room. Mum still wanted to rest a little and I also tried to take it easy for a while and read a book. But Emma bustled something all the time, since it’s so hard for her to stay in a place even for a little moment.

In the evening we got up and went to search for some nice restaurant. Dad was already better so he could come with mum, me and Emma, too. We walked all over the town, but it didn’t really matter because there was so much to see. Everything is so different here than in Finland! Even the air tastes and feel different. There are so many scents in the air; flowers, the sea, food etc... People are much friendlier and everyone looks so happy - though most of the people here are tourists. Well, who wouldn’t be relaxed on holiday. But this place has to have an effect on the people’s moods, I’m sure. Everything is so beautiful and exotic!

It took pretty a long time, but finally we found a good restaurant on the beach. The sea was quite near to the restaurant and the whole place was quite full of feeling. I and Emma ate only spaghetti, but dad and mum wanted to try some local, exotic-looking food. It looked just weird, but dad liked it. Though mum wasn’t so impressed at all. We also ate ice cream for dessert and mum drank an espresso.

When we had eaten and dad had paid the bill, we walked on the beach for a while before going back to the hotel. Mum was pretty worried all the time that Emma would run away and get lost, but then again, she is always worried about her.

After the little walk, we went back to our hotel. Now I am here on my bed writing this diary. I’m pretty tired and I think I should already stop and go to sleep. It was a wonderful day again. I’m so happy that we still have many days left and we don’t have to go yet back to Finland for many days. I feel I would just spend a lifetime here. How such beautiful places like Hawaii even can exists? I’m sure it will be fantastic tomorrow, too.

If I were a PE teacher, I would…

How often you have heard your classmates complaining about their sports lessons? Very often, I guess. Adults would maybe say all this complaining is stupid and the youth is just becoming lazier. Why they always bring up the “when I was young…” card? For example: “When I was young, we skied at least 10 kilometres - and nobody whined about it!” Well, really?

Roughly speaking, students seem to divide into two groups. There are those sporty athletes who really enjoy sport classes and prefer them to theoretical subjects like geography and French. They’re the ones who very seldom complain about sport classes and are enthusiastic to try any new sports. Doing sports is a very nice hobby but they tend to take it very seriously and are determined to win. Then there are students who aren’t so happy about sport classes at all. And the winners’ eagerness to win maybe scares them a little. Sport classes are something simply horrible and in the future they will speak about their traumatic experiences at school on some magazine or on television.

These two groups of course are roughly generalised and there’re many students who take sport classes just the way there are; maybe they complain but for them it also is supposedly okay to have sport classes at school. But it seems that these two groups still exist and want very different things from their PE classes.

So the main problem seems to be; how can we make sports lessons comfortable for everyone? Especially when people are so different and have very different opinions of sport classes?

Well, if I were a PE teacher, I would try to give something nice to everyone and make sport classes more comfortable for everyone. Surely teachers also try to do so today by changing sports all the time; for example, in the winter there is hockey, skiing, ice skating and in the autumn orienteering, baseball, football and so on. That’s one way to solve the problem and teachers always say that it helps student get to know and find new sports.

But, I have to ask, what “new”? When you have done the same sports at school year after year, you sure have found out what interests you and what really doesn’t. And the cycle always stays the same; you do these sports at this time of a year and these others at the other time. And you know exactly what to wait from your sports classes. And ability groups wouldn’t work very well, I think. They would just create more tension and stamp some students as “good at sports” and vice versa, even if it’s just about who wants to make the sports more relaxing and who are more competitive.

What’s my solution, then? I think it is okay that kids get a chance to try all kinds of sports at school. The present system would work well at comprehensive school, at least during the first years of it. But at upper secondary school the sports lessons would at the latest become more diverse. It would be good if students could choose what kind of sports they want to do - I’m sure they have already tried everything a school can offer. There would be different emphasises; dance, swimming, ball games, skiing and winter games etc. In upper secondary school - and maybe already in the last years of comprehensive school - students sure know what kind of sports they like and they would get a chance to do those. If someone liked everything or more than one of those emphases, they would choose something for one year and then something else for another year.

In this way, nobody could complain anymore about how they hate baseball or swimming or skiing. I’m sure everybody would also be ready to pay a little to get a chance to try something special since schools usually don’t have enough money for anything new and interesting... This would make sports lessons nicer. Because when someone feels they have to do sports they positively hate, it’s anything but fun. Let’s make sports lessons a bit more suitable for everyone’s individual tastes!