When I started my first semester of college my world fell apart. Shortly after arriving at school, I was a complete mess; I experienced intense anxiety, depression, and fear. There was nothing anyone could say that would make me feel like I was going to be okay. I spent weeks completely miserable. I made myself physically sick, begged my parents to let me quit and come home, and lived for the counseling sessions that made me feel like I was at least trying to help myself. After about two months of this, one of my best friends suggested that I look into getting an Emotional Support Animal (ESA) to help ease my anxiety. I loved the idea; and quickly got approval from my school to start looking for an ESA.

I decided I wanted a kitten. Cats were easier than dogs, and a kitten would be able to grow up in the dorm and get used to college life better than an adult cat could. As it turned out, a friend of a friend had a litter of rescue kittens looking for homes, and she invited me to come and meet them the next weekend. When I got to her house, another family was already there to meet the kitten that they had picked out. I sat on the floor for a while and played with all the other kittens, trying to decide which one was right for me, when the mom of the other family started having an allergic reaction to the cat hair. They left, leaving their chosen kitten available once again.

I am so thankful that the little kitten that the other family wanted was left behind that day. After just a few minutes with him, I knew that he was the one I wanted; that day, I named him Finnegan and took him home. The first weekend, I was worried that he would be too terrified to interact with me, but I was wrong. As soon as I brought him up to my room, he was off exploring and playing like he’d lived there his whole life.

A few hours later, I was laying on my bed watching him wrestle with my stuffed animals. I started to feel sad about the way his life had started; born in a junkyard and barely six weeks old with worms and fleas and no mom to take care of him. I worried that he was going to be unhappy at school with me, and that he wasn’t going to bond with me the way that I’d hoped. As if he could feel the increase in my anxiety, Finn walked over to me, and climbed onto my chest, nestling himself under my chin. He nuzzled me with his head, and purred, licking my face. It was as if he knew exactly what I needed. The tightness in my chest relaxed like it hadn’t done in months, and I knew that he was exactly as perfect and special as I would ever need him to be. He slept right there on my chest every night until I went back to school, and with every day I fell more and more in love with him. When I left to go back to school a few days later I wasn’t nervous anymore. Finnegan was mine, and I was his, and nothing in the world was going to change that.

It’s been about nine months since I brought that scrappy little junkyard kitten home. His fleas and worms are long gone now, and he’s grown into a beautiful, playful little cat with a ringtail like a raccoon, and a heart full of love. Finn’s sensitivity to my anxiety on that first day we brought him home was no fluke. A lot of the time he notices how worked up I’m getting even before I do, and he always stays close to me so that he can curl up on my chest and lick my face to make all of the bad feelings go away. We spend as much time together as we can, playing, cuddling, and even going on walks. When I have anxiety nightmares he snuggles up next to me so that I can fall back to sleep, and when I feel completely alone in the world he is there to remind me I’m not. I no longer spend my time at school wanting to go home because home to me has come to mean wherever Finnegan is. We rescued each other all those months ago, and I am so lucky to love him every single day.