One last kitten video to share

Just wanted to share two big victories I've had this past week. First, after a flood in my house from a hurricane about seven years ago, I convinced myself I had to use different pairs of shoes for upstairs and downstairs cause the floors downstairs were contaminated with flood germs. This may have made sense for like, the days after the flood but it went on til this week when I was able to bring myself to walk downstairs in my slippers and everything was fine! Second, I've had my cats in a fairly large cat enclosure to keep them separated from the dogs and also prevent them from getting into the walls that were taken down in the flood (long story, the fact that they still aren't fixed) but my brain always treated said space and by extension them as dirty. In order to give both me and the cats better quality of life, I decided to move them into my upstairs room and hall (using a gate to still prevent them from going anywhere dangerous for them while still having a bigger space to roam). I'm having to get past the stage of "Oh God, what if this was a bad idea and they contaminate my room with death germs" but I'm gonna win against my OCD and enjoy my cats!!! (Though as I write this, one of them went from the litter box straight to my bed and tracked litter onto it so there will be some more road bumps...)

bruh I was sleeping & I suddenly am woken up by one of my cats. idk what was happening but she was making a weird howling noise. her tail was puffed up and she was either looking out the window or looking at my other cat. I told her to be quiet bc idk why she was making such a weird noise. thing is, I never heard her do that. then when I threw something on the floor (my bed is a loft), they both kinda flinched. I didn’t hurt them but just needed my girl to relax. they were both looking at each other & my girl was growling/howling at my other cat. idk why. like ik sometimes they fight but she was being weird. anyway, I had to use the bathroom so I did. the door to my room was open which meant they could get out if they wanted. they didn’t. they were by the window. very odd. came back up the bed & now my mind is frightening me. thoughts are racing, ranging from: there’s something/someone at the window, likely some shadow figure to my cats secretly being possessed by some mysterious entity. my mind goes wild & when I’m suddenly woken up, I’m still in that dream state. idk how to put it but my mind starts to believe things and I feel very vulnerable. literally it’s night and everyone else in my household is asleep. these moments felt like nightmare fuel & any sudden noise triggered me. like I felt maybe my cats were going to stand on their legs and chant some shit idk. I wanna go back to sleep soon. I need my paranoid ass to calm down. at some point I started to get kinda freaked out just looking at my cats. ruhrjfjdsnnfnf I hate waking up suddenly at night T_T

Right now I am painfully focused on something so seemly silly. The age of my kitten. I rescued him from the shelter last year, and the birth date on his paper on his cage was May 8th 2024. But now, that we of course have him signed up and everything with the vet, they have his birthday pre-set at June 8th 2024. So according to the vet and their records they had before we adopted him, he is 10 months old, but according to that paper that was taped to his cage, he’s 11 months old. I know it’s silly, but I cannot get past this. I hate how if I just go with one of the birthdays, I could be wrong about his real birthday. I just want to know for 100% sure what his birthday is and it’s taking away my focus from everything else in my life. I am so hyper-focused and I hate the way it feels. On one hand, it could make “more sense” that he’s 10 months old, because he’s so much tinier than usual. Even for a 10 month old. But on the other hand, the vet could’ve just messed up on their records? Or he could just be the runt and be small for his age? My heart likes the June 8th birthday more because that’s the same birthday as my late grandmother. So I feel like I’m unconsciously biased. Why is something so dumb causing me so much distress. Ugh.