I’m going to let you all in on a secret buried so deep in my heart it’s almost painful to bring to the surface.  The last few years have been really hard.  Really hard.  Mentally, emotionally and physically.  It’s really been a strange time in my life.  And there have been times I want to give up.  Not on life, but on horses.

There.  I said it.  I feel like I betray myself above all others when I say it.  But it is true.  There have been times I’ve wanted to give up.  Henry passed away 5 years ago and since then I have had four other horses, none of which I have been able to make a good connection with.  Granted, they have all been very nice horses in their own right and a lot of it has been circumstantial.  But not being able to connect has made having them well… less enjoyable.  I’m really going to hate myself for this post.  I genuinely feel like I’m betraying them somehow…

I used to not have to decide to spend time with my horse or my dog.  But as Shorty gets older the harder it is for her to come to the barn and keep up on a daily basis leaving me to decide.  Dog day, or horse day?  Either way I feel like I’m cheating on the other.  If I go for a hike or a run or a bike ride, I feel I’m cheating on my horse as well.  I tell myself there is time for both but there really isn’t if you want to be serious about riding.  You’ve got to get to the barn above all else.

I’m sure a lot of the reason I’ve had a hard time connecting is because of the poor state of mind I’ve been in over the location I live, the awful jobs I’ve had to take and so on.  I go out to the barn with so much baggage it’s no wonder the horses don’t want to hang.  My energy is just not right.  And I honestly don’t know how to snap out of it.  I used to snap out of it by going for a ride.  But that was when my horse was a long time trusted friend and we had a deep relationship and my horses helped me.  They say the horse is a mirror to your soul and when I go to the barn now, I see lack of understanding, fear, restless energy, no clear direction or purpose.  What “they” say seems to be all too true.

As I said before, I have also had health issues I’ve never had to struggle with.  Weight gain (also a sign of the emotional state I believe), deteriorating joints, more knee injuries, migraines, and a host of “female problems”.  The state of health insurance has taken a toll financially to nurse these problems and thus leading to more emotional unbalance.  I feel wildly unsure of my body in a way I’ve never had to navigate before.  When you feel unsure of your body, riding horses, or at least horses you don’t trust (not because they are bad, just because of the lack of connection), is actually, I’m finding a terrifying experience.

Because of the uncertainty of my body it has created a fear I never had before.  It truly is terrifying when you don’t or can’t trust your own body.  I’ve never felt anything like it and it’s truly hard to explain.  There was never an inch of fear in me when I picked up Henry for the Mustang Makeover.  Or when I rode Sally down a steep, icy, narrow trail in Telluride in the pitch black.  No fear when I started the uncounted number of colts.  No fear stepping on a horse I never rode before.  And yet, I am fearful because I don’t know if my body can handle the “what if’s”.

So yes, all these things making me bang my head against the wall, making me wonder what happened to that girl I used to be.  All these things have made me want to give up.  Sell the truck, sell the trailer, sell the horse… sell the saddle.  Think of what I could do with the money! But I haven’t yet.  And I still don’t believe I ever will.  Because there are times the only thing that makes me still feel real, are the horses.  Their scent.  The way they move.  The way they feel under hand.  The big liquid brown eyes.  The twitch of their ears.  That soft spot on their muzzle only other horse people will understand.  The rhythm of a good long, low, relaxed posting trot.  One, two, one, two, one, two…

I know I will find my way through this.  Nothing stirs my heart like the horse.  And God would not have put a love like this in me, if it were not to be.  To become teary at a quote, a photo, a movie, a moment.  To feel so deeply to a cause to save the Mustang that my heart literally feels like it is breaking in my chest.  I cannot give up.  I must find myself again.  I must find my health, my courage and my heart.  I named my horse Arwen, after the warrior princess of the Lord of the Rings.  The name she came with didn’t feel right.  And I’d never had a hard time naming a horse, but it took me almost a week to find her name.  She seemed familiar to me for some reason.  And that threw me off.  Like we had known each other before.  Who knows.  Perhaps this warrior horse has come to battle for me.  Battle for the heart of this lost soul.