The Fear Place

I think we have all been there.  You took a new route, did the wrong thing at the wrong time, had something completely accidental happen.  Sometimes you luck out, and nothing bad comes of it even when it should have. Other times, you get hurt, perhaps even end up in the hospital.  Life can be like that, but with horses, the chances of getting injured go way up.

People handle these things in different ways.  Some are able to get up and go on like nothing ever happened.  Others are devastated, so traumatized that they give up riding for life.  Of course, there is every nuance of feeling between those two extremes, and most people land in the middle.

I had a bad fall while cantering that still causes me back pain now and again.  It has been over 6 years, and I am 90% over it.  I still get a little clutch in my belly before asking for it for the first time in any particular ride, but then it smooths out and I'm okay.

My mom's bad fall is something she is still working through, and it's what I wanted to highlight today.  I happened to be there for her fall, and have been helping her work through it since.  I had to dig my way out of my own worm hole, too afraid and ashamed to admit my fears or to know how to ask for help.  Now that I am on the other side, it is gratifying to reach out and offer empathy, support, and guidance.

Mom and Lady (ironic name) were going down a hill behind Rocky and I.  We were close to the barn, coming back from a very short trail ride. My mom is new to horses and to Lady in particular.  When Lady began to trot down the hill, it scared my mom so she attempted to pull her to a stop.  Lady was a dominant personality mare that my mom was learning to handle, but she hadn't been able to really gain Lady's respect.  Instead of stopping, Lady swerved to the side of the trail.  By this time, I had heard the hoof beats behind me speed up, so I had turned around in the saddle to make sure they were okay.

I saw Lady tuck her nose a bit, then kick out with both hind legs three times in a row.  By the third kick she had effectively bounced my mom out of the saddle.  She fell hard on her back and right side.  I was off Rocky and next to my mom as fast as I could be, where she gasped for breath.  Remembering what it felt like to get the wind knocked out of me, to try to stand up while hard fists were closed around my lungs was scary by myself.  I coached my mom to take slow, shallow breaths rather than claw for a big filling one.   I told her to stop trying to get up and just focus on getting air.

She listened, staying on her knees with her hands on the ground in front of her, trying not to cry and moan in pain while getting the necessary oxygen.  After what seemed like forever, but was probably 30 seconds or so, I could hear her breathing even out.  She was still half panting from pain but it was no longer as panicky.   I grabbed Lady then, and helped her slowly stand up.

We traded horses for the short walk back to the barn.  I didn't know if Lady would try to rush or push her way back, but I knew Rocky would be gentle.

I ended up taking my mom to the hospital, where they admitted her for two days.  It was one of the scariest drives of my life; I wanted to go fast to get there quickly, but take turns and stop carefully.   She had severely bruised her kidneys and they were worried she may have internal bleeding.   She was released after two days with painkillers and no internal damage other than bruising.

Since then, she has purchased a new horse named Tapper and gained new horsemanship abilities.  She is still learning, as all of us are, but has come a long way.

A few days ago, we had completed a decent trail ride with no mishaps.  Tapper started to trot down the same hill Lady had over a year before, and my mom panicked.  It brought back all of her memories of her fall and even though he stopped when he caught up to Rocky and I, only 15 feet ahead of them, the fear had taken over my mom.

To Be Continued...

Micro Esteem

I have a degree in psychology, and I am trying to get good at noticing micro expressions.  Sometimes. (A micro expression is a tiny flash of emotion that people unconsciously will do, and is referred to in as a non verbal means of communication.)  So yeah, micro expressions.  Learning to read them, meaning notice that someone made the expression, figure out what emotion was shown, and then use that information to better understand what the person is truly thinking versus what they are literally saying. It can be very helpful at my job.  I work with teenagers at a residential treatment facility, and sometimes catching a micro expression and commenting on the feeling behind it can get you into more honest conversations with people.

For example, I was talking to an 18 year old male client, and I told him that he seems to be a sensitive person.  He flashed the expression for scorn and then smoothed it away in a heartbeat, because as humans we tend to not want to insult others.  He tried to be polite and say something about how "that's possible."  But his face told me he not only didn't believe he is a sensitive person, but his initial gut reaction was to be scornful of the very idea of being sensitive.  I pointed this out to him, and explained what I meant by sensitive.  After my explanation, he admitted that he can be emotionally sensitive- which is why he puts up protective "walls" around his feelings.  But I digress.

The point is, learning to read and respond to micro expressions at my work place has been helpful.  Not so in my person life.  I.E., with my mom.  I often wish that I could just not notice what my mom thinks about things.  I want to take what she is verbally saying at face value, and ignore her body language.

This is where I explain why I mentioned my degree in psychology at the beginning of this post.  It's because I can make excuses for other people's behavior all day long.  I'm good at it, at explaining it, rationalizing why someone might be doing what they are doing, etc.   Having insight into others is a double edged sword.  I can rationalize that my mom has a lot of things going on in her life right now that are really stressful, so if she looks at me with that "you look fat" face, or "you need to stop gaining weight" look, it's only because her mom is floundering downhill with Alzheimer's.  

The thing is, right now I feel like my mom thinks I'm fat, she doesn't like or understand my husband (he doesn't like going outside very much! He plays video games- a lot. Eep!), and she doesn't like my dog (he's "aggressive" and "doesn't understand" the word "come." Uh, yeah, he does, sometimes he chooses to ignore you, or stare at you blankly.  He does get it, though. She is upset that he likes to come when you are using a high pitched, read: happy tone of voice.  She "doesn't play that game," meaning using a different tone of voice to call him.  Nope, she puts a shock collar on her dog so that if he doesn't come, she can shock him.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess).

The thinking I'm fat thing... to be fair, I am overweight. I finally got myself some new bras yesterday because they were half off, and I don't like to spend money on myself, but I found out I went up two bra sizes.  Thank God I don't have that horrible 4 boob thing going on anymore, but up two sizes? I was grateful she wasn't there with me, not because I feel that terrible about my new bra size, but because her presence would have made me feel ashamed.  Even though she is overweight, too.  Women are tough on each other.

It's why I almost didn't get my new coat, because nothing seemed to look good on me yesterday- at least to her.  She gave me the once over, a half hearted "that's nice, but isn't that just like the other coat you have?"  Her face screamed that she was not impressed.  Nope, not really. I confirmed this when I brought it home to show Justin, and asked him if he thought it was the same as my other jacket.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said no, the two coats were completely different. (By the way, I love my husband).  This coat has a tie around the waist, which actually gives me a waist.  I think I look good in it.

I tried on this dress, it was lacy, black, and sexy.  I put my new Spanx on under it, the first Spanx I have ever purchased, and went, "Wow! My butt looks smooth! My sides are nipped in! I've got some cleavage going- which, what is the point of having big boobs if you never show them off- and the skirt is a decent enough length that I don't look slutty!"  I came out of the dressing room, as my mom had told me she wanted to see. Haltingly, she told me, "Oh, cute. Yeah."  And nodded.  She looked at me a few seconds longer, then asked, "Did you see yourself in a full length mirror?"  Who wants to be cute in a dress designed to be sexy, with a v neckline and black lace?  Um, yeah, I saw myself in a full length mirror.  I thought that my husband would love this dress, and want to get me out of it at his earliest opportunity.

I couldn't buy it then, not with the way she looked at me in it.  Her micro expressions were all negative, all condemning my cleavage and curvy (but now smoothly curvy- thanks Spanx!) torso. I did buy some boots that she wasn't overly impressed with either, but dammit, I can wear these every day.  And I like them. The dress would be a date-night dress, and we can only afford so many of those.  I suggested wearing the boots with skinny jeans, and she quickly told me, "Or just like that," meaning with pants over them.  Apparently I look bad in skinny jeans, too.

When I told my husband about it, wanting his honest opinion, he told me that the boots look good this morning (with skinny jeans, thankyouverymuch) and that he thinks I'm sexy anyway.  But that dress sounded good.

I did get $75 in Kohl's cash so I think I am going back to buy that dress on Monday.  Sexy date night, here I come! Negative micro expressions be damned.

Trail Ride

My mom, Mindy, is relatively new to being a rider and owner of a horse.  She always wanted a horse growing up, but was told she couldn't have one.  Now as an adult, she has taken the opportunity to purchase her own horse.  Her first horse ended up being a bad match which concluded with my mom in the hospital for two days. The horse (ironically named "Lady") bucked my mom off at the bottom of a hill on a short trail ride.  My mom had tried to flex her into a circle after Lady started trotting down the hill, and Lady decided it would be better to just offload my mom.  Lady is now with a more experienced family who adores her.   That whole debacle convinced my mom that she wants a calmer, more steady horse rather than one with attitude.  She also has been drooling over Norwegian Fjords for several years.

She now owns Tapper, a 6 year old Norwegian Fjord gelding. She boards him with Rocky, and they are friends in the same pasture.  Mindy takes riding lessons from our barn owner/manager, and listens to my advice as well.

Her goal is to trail ride, and someday train Tapper to pull a cart.  She has some fear issues due to the incident with Lady but has been much better about taking more regular lessons.  Tapper is a sweetheart, and his biggest issue at this point is that he can be pretty clumsy.  I think he's still growing into his large feet!

With all of that background, two days ago I went on a trail ride with my mom.  Rocky has been doing super well (I still have to write about a trail ride I did almost a month ago now...it's coming...) so I figured he'd be a good, steady trail horse for me while I watched over my mom.

We started out and it was really hot that day, close to 80 degrees plus some humidity thrown in for fun.  My mom said that she wanted to do the loop of the trail by the barn that we have already done before, and I was a bit disappointed.  The day before my BO and I went for a trail ride to the neighbor's trails, which were beautiful and a nice change of pace for me.

I agreed to do the smaller loop, and we were most of the way through when I stopped to chat with my mom for a bit.  I talked to her about her desire to go on day trip trail rides with Tapper, and how I want her to be confident doing trail rides at the barn before going on a ride in a new location.  She acknowledged my concerns and told me that her plan is to ride Tapper as much as possible this summer, getting more miles under their feet.

I offered to take her to the neighbor's trails again, as Tapper was doing well that day and so was Rocky.  She thought about it for a minute, and then decided to go for it.  She said, "I need to go by what Tapper is showing me, and he's fine. I'm the one that's worried."

We got over to the neighbor's trails, and talked about how pretty they are with their wide, grassy riding lanes and tall trees.   We rode down a gravel road to the back of the neighbor's property, then took a left past their burn pile.  Here, I stopped to watch my mom's face as we turned the corner to a long, beautiful stretch of trail.  It was grassy with a lot of pines on one side, and other deciduous trees on the other.  Her eyes lit up and she laughed in delight when she saw it, exclaiming, "Wow! This is gorgeous!"

I felt happy that I could be there with her when she got to enjoy her longest trail ride to date, and that it could go so well.  We even trotted together down that long, grassy lane, the dogs loping along beside us with grins on their faces.

The Poster Debacle

I may have just done something bad. And by bad, I mean potentially harmful to my relationship with my sister. I am really hoping that she won't be angry with me. Let me explain.

Over the weekend of December 17, my family all met at the halfway point between where my sister and the rest of us (Mom, Dad, Justin and I) live. I believe I blogged about it previously. It went really well, no snide remarks or hurtful comments, blah blah blah. Anyway. My sister's boyfriend, "B", and I got to actually talk for the first time... ever, really. And they're pretty serious about each other, or at least that's what I'm hearing from my sister, "K."

B told me about himself, including that his dream was to be a comic book illustrator, and he went to school for it for 2 years. I thought, COOL! and had a great idea. I asked him if he would make Justin, my Dungeons and Dragon playing, gaming, nerdy husband into a comic book hero. It could be this awesome poster, and could also include our household pets whom Justin adores, as his "sidekicks." Super cool, right? B and K seemed excited about it too, and B said that he could do it and asked me to send him pictures of everybody- Justin, Bear, Bennett, and Fox.

In the beginning of January, I sent out the email with pictures and descriptions of what Justin's outfit should look like, preferred weapons, etc. and asked if they could have it done by the end of January for Justin's birthday. K said that should be fine, so I waited until the week before Justin's birthday (last week of January) and emailed back asking about a date that it could be finished. No reply. I talked to K on the phone and she said that she reminded B about it, and he said, "Oh shit, I completely forgot! I feel like such an asshole," and that he began working on it that night. I thought, 'Ok, it might be a bit late for Justin's birthday but it's been started, so that's not so bad.' 2 weeks go by and still, I hear nothing.

I email back on February 13, asking if B could just let me know how it's going, if he can still do the poster or not, and if so, when I could expect it to be done.

Nothing.

I emailed again on February 20 (for those of you not wanting to count, I waited another week) and asked the same questions as I did in the last email. At this point, I just want to know if I am getting a poster or not. I told him that Justin had asked if I had been scammed, as he was still waiting for his birthday present.

Nothing.

So today (6 days after the last nice email I sent), I sent this:
Hey B*,
I wish I had another way to contact you, but this is all I've got. Just forget doing that poster for me, it's way past when I wanted it and I have heard absolutely nothing from you about it. So I guess I am telling you that you won't hear from me again about it. I'm really disappointed, not just that I didn't get the poster, but that you have failed to say anything to me about it, even "I don't know" or "I can't do it." Either of which would have been fine, and much better than waiting for almost 2 months with no reply. I was really excited about this opportunity, but I would have understood if you had told me that you didn't have time, didn't want to do it, or that I would need to wait X amount of time for it. Perhaps you have a legitimate reason for not responding to any of my emails, but at this point I feel disrespected and angry that I wasted all of this time waiting for nothing. I really hope that you are better at communicating and more respectful to my sister than you have been to me. I don't like to bring her into this, except that she deserves to be with someone who will be a great partner and honestly, your complete lack of follow through on this endeavor concerns me. I apologize if there is some reason I have not heard from you that will explain what has happened here in a logical way.
Sincerely,
(my name)

Also, when someone emails B (at his business email address- by the way, he owns his own business- and it's the only email I have for him) I think everyone at the business (or at least my sister, who works part time for B) also gets the emails.

So I'm hoping she doesn't read it and get pissed at me, and/or that it doesn't cause a rift between them.

I feel like I wasn't too over the top, or hateful, or disrespectful, but I also feel like he needs to know how I feel about what happened. I also waited to write it until I was calmer about it (there was a day last week that I was absolutely furious, and wrote an extremely nasty email in my head).

A part of me is hoping that he reads it and sends an apology email stating that the poster is done and he's sorry for not saying anything sooner.

Another part of me is scared that he'll be pissed. Yet I am also halfway expecting no reply at all, simply a continuation of the non communication.

Which should be interesting if they come up to visit in April...