Had a very tough night last week.
Nothing to do with business, but a bittersweet night it was. As some of you know, ever since Covid started, I’ve fostered a few cats.
I barely even knew what fostering meant until a few years ago, but basically it’s when you help take care of an animal (cats, dogs, etc.) until the animal shelter can find someone to adopt it.
Usually because shelters don’t have enough room or funding for so many animals at once.
Anyway, when I was stuck inside during Covid, my fiancé recommended I give it a try and I loved it. I’ve now fostered 4 different cats over the last 2-3 years, and they’re great to have around.
Not sure if you’ve ever had a cat, but they’re pretty great animals – mostly just sleeping, eating, hanging out and not needing too much attention or upkeep. And they make for good company while working from home.
In October, we decided to foster another cat and got a cute 7 year old cat named Gary (who names a cat “Gary”?! We were hooked).
He was on some medication and needed a tooth removed, so we had him for a good 3-4 months until he was medically cleared to be adopted. The good news is he is a great cat – relaxed, quiet, loves a good pet on his head or under his chin.
The bad news is that even though we knew we didn’t want to adopt an animal, we fell in love with him.
Over the weekend he was cleared for adoption, and not surprisingly, someone expressed interest right away. We had a Zoom call with them 2 nights ago, and they decided they wanted to adopt him and pick him up the next night.
So last week, on Tuesday around 630pm, we packed up all of Gary’s things, and put him into his cat carrier one last time, and handed him off to his new owners.
They seem like great peeople, and it seems like he will have an amazing new forever home, but it was sad as hell handing him over. Time will go on, and I’ll get back to the grind, but last week I may have shed a tear or three for Gary.
I’m not sure if there’s a real solopreneur business takeaway from this story, but I’ll say this – especially if you’re working from home these days and find it difficult or lonely, check to see if there are any animal shelters nearby.
They’re often overflowing with animals in need of a foster parent to take care of them until the shelter can find someone to adopt them.
I’m certainly glad I did…
