What month is it again?
If I start trying to apologize or explain about completely failing at everything I've been completely failing at for a while now - namely fandom, and my fandom projects/obligations (none of which have been abandoned, but all of which have been put on hold for the moment), and keeping in touch - I'll never have the courage or energy to post again, so I'm going to skip that and just...consider it said.
Mostly, every spare bit of my energy - actually, every bit, spare or no - for the past month or two has been spent on horses and fighting off the constant threatening clouds of despondency, which two endeavors are closely linked, since a large part of the underlying cause for the severity of that threat has been my misery about the awful horse/barn situation, which has totally consumed my mind for the past three months. I never reported back after my last post - the short story, since I can't even contemplate mustering the energy necessary to tell the full, is that we ended up staying at the old place through January, which seems like it should have been a reprieve, and I suppose in a way it was, but the conditions under which we were able to do that were...well, the barn owner had us over a barrel, and she took every advantage of it.
And though we of course had two more months to look for a new place, the additional time didn't help - we found a last-resort place to go early on, and we ended up having to go there, because we found no better alternatives. It's just never going to be easy to find what we're looking for - to find anywhere to take eight horses, for that matter, but we have some very specific needs/desires - and especially not in the middle of winter. Which meant that I had two extra months to stress and worry about the move, to dread going to a place I so didn't want to go, and for my anger, bitterness, and resentment toward the old barn owner to continue to grow, for...well, for lots of things, but mostly for her terrible handling of the whole thing and for putting us in a position where we had to leave an almost-ideal situation, one in which the horses thrived and that worked perfectly us, for a situation that, while not terrible, is worse in just about every way than what we had before.
So anyway, I've been miserable. Anxious, despondent, unhappy, and just...well, miserable.
We moved last Friday - eight horses and all the mountains of stuff that accompany them. The horses, predictably, were extremely anxious - as soon as we started loading all of them up to travel, they knew something was wrong; we've never before taken all of them somewhere at the same time (we had to do it in two trips; my trailer holds two and Carolyn's four). It was a terrible, terrible day for a move - there had been snow and ice storms earlier in the week, and nothing had thawed - the ground was still covered with a layer of slick ice everywhere it hadn't been plowed. When we turned them all out in their new field for the first time, Doha ran around at full gallop on the slippery ice for ten minutes - it took years off my life. Griggs didn't eat, Bodie screamed constantly for his first twenty minutes in his new stall...
It took all day to get everything moved in, and it was a gruelling, depressing day.
This morning I rode them all in the new arena for the first time. I don't like the arena very much. And my rides were all utterly mediocre. I felt like I just totally and completely suck. I keep telling myself - the horses aren't settled, and I'm not settled; it was our first ride in a new place, and I'm feeling unhappy and discombobulated, and I shouldn't read anything into the fact that it didn't go brilliantly - it's not a sign that I've lost my ability to ride. But it felt so discouraging. And I so hate feeling this way, so depressed and discouraged, about an aspect of my life that I love so much, because I do love those horses, even if they sometimes make me crazy-anxious. And I keep telling myself - this situation can be temporary; we can (and intend to) keep looking for a better situation for the long term. But it feels so hard right now to think positively, and everything is made even worse by the fact that it's the dead of winter, and it's just been so cold for so long, and so bleak...
I know this isn't a very uplifting post, and I hate feeling like I'm whining, almost enough not to post at all. But it just hit me this morning that it's been a long, long time since I felt this low, and that I need to make at least a cursory effort to fight my ingrained tendency to withdraw when I feel bad - even the effort of writing it out makes a difference. I think. I hope.
Maybe I'll end with something at least a bit more happy-making - a few pictures from last month (the old place, of course), all of them in their winter clothes, contentedly eating hay in the pastures in which they've lived for four years, little knowing their lives were about to be turned upside down. The one good thing - at least they're all still together; they have their herd.
Oz, Griggs, Ana (the mare in the herd; Griggs adores her - they all adore her, actually; she's a good alpha mare, but when Griggs gets anxious he sticks to her like glue), and Bodie:
Doha enjoying his lunch:
Mostly, every spare bit of my energy - actually, every bit, spare or no - for the past month or two has been spent on horses and fighting off the constant threatening clouds of despondency, which two endeavors are closely linked, since a large part of the underlying cause for the severity of that threat has been my misery about the awful horse/barn situation, which has totally consumed my mind for the past three months. I never reported back after my last post - the short story, since I can't even contemplate mustering the energy necessary to tell the full, is that we ended up staying at the old place through January, which seems like it should have been a reprieve, and I suppose in a way it was, but the conditions under which we were able to do that were...well, the barn owner had us over a barrel, and she took every advantage of it.
And though we of course had two more months to look for a new place, the additional time didn't help - we found a last-resort place to go early on, and we ended up having to go there, because we found no better alternatives. It's just never going to be easy to find what we're looking for - to find anywhere to take eight horses, for that matter, but we have some very specific needs/desires - and especially not in the middle of winter. Which meant that I had two extra months to stress and worry about the move, to dread going to a place I so didn't want to go, and for my anger, bitterness, and resentment toward the old barn owner to continue to grow, for...well, for lots of things, but mostly for her terrible handling of the whole thing and for putting us in a position where we had to leave an almost-ideal situation, one in which the horses thrived and that worked perfectly us, for a situation that, while not terrible, is worse in just about every way than what we had before.
So anyway, I've been miserable. Anxious, despondent, unhappy, and just...well, miserable.
We moved last Friday - eight horses and all the mountains of stuff that accompany them. The horses, predictably, were extremely anxious - as soon as we started loading all of them up to travel, they knew something was wrong; we've never before taken all of them somewhere at the same time (we had to do it in two trips; my trailer holds two and Carolyn's four). It was a terrible, terrible day for a move - there had been snow and ice storms earlier in the week, and nothing had thawed - the ground was still covered with a layer of slick ice everywhere it hadn't been plowed. When we turned them all out in their new field for the first time, Doha ran around at full gallop on the slippery ice for ten minutes - it took years off my life. Griggs didn't eat, Bodie screamed constantly for his first twenty minutes in his new stall...
It took all day to get everything moved in, and it was a gruelling, depressing day.
This morning I rode them all in the new arena for the first time. I don't like the arena very much. And my rides were all utterly mediocre. I felt like I just totally and completely suck. I keep telling myself - the horses aren't settled, and I'm not settled; it was our first ride in a new place, and I'm feeling unhappy and discombobulated, and I shouldn't read anything into the fact that it didn't go brilliantly - it's not a sign that I've lost my ability to ride. But it felt so discouraging. And I so hate feeling this way, so depressed and discouraged, about an aspect of my life that I love so much, because I do love those horses, even if they sometimes make me crazy-anxious. And I keep telling myself - this situation can be temporary; we can (and intend to) keep looking for a better situation for the long term. But it feels so hard right now to think positively, and everything is made even worse by the fact that it's the dead of winter, and it's just been so cold for so long, and so bleak...
I know this isn't a very uplifting post, and I hate feeling like I'm whining, almost enough not to post at all. But it just hit me this morning that it's been a long, long time since I felt this low, and that I need to make at least a cursory effort to fight my ingrained tendency to withdraw when I feel bad - even the effort of writing it out makes a difference. I think. I hope.
Maybe I'll end with something at least a bit more happy-making - a few pictures from last month (the old place, of course), all of them in their winter clothes, contentedly eating hay in the pastures in which they've lived for four years, little knowing their lives were about to be turned upside down. The one good thing - at least they're all still together; they have their herd.
Oz, Griggs, Ana (the mare in the herd; Griggs adores her - they all adore her, actually; she's a good alpha mare, but when Griggs gets anxious he sticks to her like glue), and Bodie:
Doha enjoying his lunch: