31 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted in Horses, Short Story
So technically I know you’re supposed to do throwback posts on Thursday but hey, I am the Fairy Queen of my blog and if I decide it’s Throwback Saturday then it’s Throwback Saturday.
Plus I wanted to post this before I lost the courage. I wrote this in a creative writing class in high school so consider that a disclaimer all on its own. This is for Frances, the horse who we lost too young.
15 Saturday Feb 2014
Posted in Reflections
Tags
Now that I think about it, I realize I’ve never lost a friendship that I genuinely wanted to keep before now. Certain people have been culled from my life but I’d never intended to keep them in the first place. And I might not be as close to all my friends as I once was but I know, from experience, that just a few words are enough to reestablish the connection. The love remains.
I think of it as a web stretched across time zones, linking us no matter how much our lives change.
So I’m being launched onto this strange new landscape of having to cut ties to someone whose friendship I treasured.
When I consider someone a really good friend, I include them in my dreams for the future. There’s an estate in Scotland, a castle and grounds, where I want to live. I’ve moved all of my friends there, too. While they may not always live there, or only visit, there is a room with their name on it. I make them a part of the family I want to grow and include them in my definition of home.
For the first time since that habit began, I have to evict someone. They can no longer be a part of my future, my family. There is now a dark, empty room in the space in my mind that was reserved for hopeful thoughts. I made a mistake and put someone in that room that I couldn’t trust. It’s crushing.
The worst part is that I have to cut them out for doing something so completely, pointlessly cruel. There was nothing to be gained and everything to be lost. I don’t know why they made that decision. I don’t know if it would make a difference if they explained it to me. It can’t be forgiven.
They’ve already doubled down on the initial strike. Apparently they found the idea that their actions could cause pain outrageous. How dare they be expected to acknowledge other people’s feelings!
I already have a father like that. I don’t need friends who think the same way.
I wonder now how I could have been so blind as to stumble into a relationship with someone who cares so little for their friends. Who would only defend themselves in the face of the hurt they inflicted.
It’s all broken now. They’ve killed a friendship and left me to grieve. Probably they’ll think my reaction overkill or unreasonable. But I can’t do anything else.
I have so few rules when it comes to my friends. When you break the only one that really matters, there are no second chances.
The home I want to build is no longer open to you and neither is my heart.
Goodbye.
30 Saturday Nov 2013
Posted in Fifty Shades of Grey Audio Recaps, Horses
Tags
50 Shades recaps, brego, Fifty Shades of Grey, Jenny Trout, the feelings corner, voice beneath the hat
It’s taken a lot longer than I wanted to get this chapter done. First I had a cold, so recording was out. Then there was a chunk of work to get done in order for the end of this semester to not be really horrible. I had every intention of posting a chapter on Thanksgiving as a sort of holiday treat. But then the holidays punched me in the soul instead.
I believe many of you are familiar with my horse, Brego. I blog about him from time to time.
He nearly died this past Tuesday night. Technically he’s not out of the woods yet as infection is still a danger but everyone at the hospital is very optimistic. After a pretty traumatic surgery he’s perked up a lot, which just speaks to how much pain he was in before they operated.
Brego had a twisted bowel. If he hadn’t been strong and healthy enough to survive the surgery to fix it, we would have had to put him down to keep him from suffering. Nothing about this wasn’t killing me but the part that felt additionally painful was that we really couldn’t afford the surgery. We did it anyway, of course. Like Mom said, you can’t just put down a healthy horse who has every chance of surviving after the procedure.
They’re reducing his pain medication and if all goes well he’ll get to go home in a week or so. The looming, soul-sucking fear that I have is now purely focused on the financial aspect of all this. Setting aside what his stay at the hospital and treatments have cost, the surgery itself was between $7000 to $9000.
So basically Mom and I are playing for time. Time for me to maybe, hopefully get a book published and in the meantime scraping together any extra pennies I can find. We do have some time but just as we were taking a step back onto solid ground this has pushed us right up to the edge again. One more disastrous puff of air and it’s all over.
If any one of you could either afford to click the flattr button or go to Passing the Hat, I would really appreciate it if you could help me play for time as well.
Ahem. And now what you all are actually here for! Be sure to go read along with Jenny’s post or you’ll miss the creepy staring frog. Or is it a toad? I’m not sure.
27 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in Reflections
… Uh, sorry. I just got distracted by that cocktail at the top of the page.
Man, that looks good.
What was I doing? Oh, right, making a Batman joke.
Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up and possibly get therapy and realize that dressing up like a bat and punching criminals isn’t really a healthy coping mechanism even if it does make for really cool movies.
I’ve fallen down publicly twice recently. I covered the first one in my Laguna post. This recent fall was two days ago. The bottom of my shoe inexplicably found a slippery spot of asphalt, sent my leg out from under me and I did an awkward, improbable split to the ground. I also managed to rip a hole in my jeans and skin my knee.
Something about a skinned knee just sends you right back to adolescence. It implies a certain level of reckless clumsiness that you really should have outgrown by now. Except that’s completely unfair because there is no way to outgrow freak accidents.
I’m writing about this because I realized that every time I’ve taken a fall like that a single line of thought just starts roaring in my head. Get up, get up, get up, walk it off, don’t let them see, make it go away, just keep walking. My number one priority after taking a spill in public is to immediately do all I can to erase the event.
Sure, I hit the ground but I must be fine because I’m walking forward with determination and vigor!
Now excuse me while I find somewhere secluded to see if I’m bleeding or not. There’s a severe burning sensation but I don’t feel that ominous trickle. Yet.
I didn’t even know I’d torn my jeans until I’d walked away from the main thoroughfare, favoring the knee that had lost a few layers of skin. Once I saw the hole at my knee I was much more upset about damaging a perfectly good pair of jeans than I was about any physical damage. That’s not a new reaction, either. Once I got really upset about having scraped a new pair of shoes after I fell down some stairs.
I get the logic behind prioritizing damage to possessions over damage to skin. After all, skin heals. The scrapes on my shoes and the hole in my jeans are permanent things that will not seamlessly evaporate over time.
I’m far more interested, now that I’ve spotted this pattern, in the frenzied response to an unplanned display of vulnerability in public. That desperate voice in my head screaming at me to get on my feet and move already, limp away if I have to but just get away from the people.
Pain becomes unimportant in the face of that drive to escape.
So I think learning to pick yourself up after a fall is pretty small potatoes. Admitting you’re hurt and asking for help is a much bigger hurdle. It only gets easier when you realize you have people around you that want to help and, in fact, would feel honored to know you trust them with yourself enough to lean on them.
I figured that part out when Brego stepped on my spine. A story for another day!
Chapter Nine Recap going up tomorrow after I raid the Trader Joe’s wine shop.
Beneath the Hat 