In his book Love’s Executioner, Irv Yalmon, this really interesting psychologist, discusses four existential concerns—death; freedom; isolation; and meaning—and those are the very concerns I get myself into a tizzy about all the time. I worry that every mole, every sniffle and sneeze, every headache or bout with indigestion means I, or someone I love, is probably dying. I fret over the push and pull between embracing the freedom of becoming an authentic self and my responsibility toward others. My mind goes round and round wondering if it’s selfish to want to both connection with others and separateness from them. But it’s that fourth concern—the idea of meaning—that gets under my craw. I’ve got this Pure O-obsession with the desire to make meaning. I want things, my experiences, my relationships, both present and past, to make sense.

Take this anecdote, for example. I could think all day on what it means, what it reveals about my son and me, what it says about power dynamics and competing philosophies. The Boy and I have had the kitten for a year and a half now, and while this sweet sassy ball of fluff has brought all this energy and light into the house, her presence continues to infuriate our older cat. In fact, the older cat is so peeved that every night she hops into the kitten’s litter box where she leaves a big old nasty deposit, and—this is the best part—she doesn’t bury it. She just leaves it there to show the kitten: this is what I think of you.

There’s a turf war taking place in our house. Territory is being claimed. Lines are being drawn. I look at that nasty mess in the litter box and see a metaphor. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic,” I asked the boy, “if we had that kind of power? If we could go to the bathroom, that most intimate space, at an enemy’s house and leave a little something there for him to find in the morning? Wouldn’t that send the clearest of messages?”

“It’s cat shit,” my son, the literalist, said.