Taking Liberties

What is paranoia, exactly? Fear. To let yourself be afraid, really. I think it’s sad to have to live with paranoia, and don’t understand how people can truly find happiness while being paranoid. Does she love me? She love me not? Does she think about other people? Doesn’t everyone? Is that a crime? Of course not.To act on it might be, but nothing that happens inside your head should ever be a crime.

The reason people want to write blogs or diaries is to vent, to say the most innappropriate things in private, to not offend in public. Or to use your imagination. Or to have a release (like bowling) so you are a better person after realizing life isn’t such a big deal.

I like to write, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and always wondered if my stories would be interesting to other people. However, if I feel I couldn’t be trusted to put my thoughts on paper, how would I get enough practice to write a novel one day if I wanted to? Even if being a novelist never came to fruition, it doesn’t matter. Trust is the issue here. And having Faith that whatever I may write is not taken out of context, or used against me in any way.

Writing is so much cheaper than therapy. I like to hear myself talk as much as the next person, but when I can express myself in this kind of venue, I feel satisfied I am not boring another human being who really doesn’t give a shit about my lifestyle, my relationships, my food habits, wine habits, travel addictions, or whatever else is on my mind.

I also write because I have a pretty shitty memory, and forget things that happen in life that deserve more than that. I don’t want to look back in thirty years and think I wonder what I did back in the day. Maybe I’ll crack myself up when no one else is getting the joke, just by reading an old entry.

I have defended myself over and over again since the teenage years when I used to write ridiculous stories about compulsive teenagers and weird fictional characters, only to be accused of destroying myself and other people over it. I actually think writing helped me get through my teenage years more than anything else. Others saw it quite differently. Fear would consume my parents, thinking that I was unstable, or needed to be institutionalized, or whatever they thought.

My life is fine, I am happy, I love my parents, love my husband, enjoy teaching very much, love adventure, and am considerably lucky to be where I am today. I know that, and am fine with it. I don’t imagine a life with anyone else, I just like to see myself doing more adventures. That’s all, and writing is one of those adventures, you can yell, scream, pitch a fit, and no one hears you, or cares, or responds. It’s like talking to your cat. I also make a lot of collages, more so I don’t forget certain times of my life that were meaningful. Trips, horses, jobs all get interpreted through pictures and words jumbled together, more for my amusement than anyone else’s. I also think these expressions make you a more interesting person. However, if I am wrong, so be it. I have been wrong before. I’ll be wrong again, I am used to it. That Deloise. What an idiot.

If I hear one more person tell me to stay off the mountain bike I am going to freak out on someone. Who do they think they are? Playing it safe is the only way to go these days, yet you have to endure people bitching about all of the things they wish they were doing instead of collapsing in front of the television every night. At least I was attempting different sports. At least I was trying to have a life! I think playing it safe makes you the most boring person in the world, even if you are the smartest. I would much rather be considered dumb, but have a hell of a time doing fun stuff. I am going to have so many regrets when I am old! Christ I am not that far off! So I am going to scrimp and save, buy the bloody $2200 dollar bike, bike in a race, climb a fucking mountain, complete the adventure race, or whatever I want to do and if I have a torn liver or end up with a broken bone, so be it.  It will have been worth it. I don’t think I need to defend myself, but it has been boiling over for the past week and I just want to scream at everyone.

Good friends have been helping out, however, and setting jumps for me, helping me with the horses and the trailer, and not complaining. Yet. Let’s hope I don’t abuse their generosity.

People are so weird. Maybe I should have pursued some sort of career in psychotherapy to have a better understanding of the human brain. I get a call from one of the moms saying a friend of mine suggested her daughter to come as a working student for a few weeks in the summer. Alarm bells go off, because I am thinking why would anyone want a 14-year old OCD kid with a habit of not being the healthiest in their barn? I already had an issue with her in Ohio and not receiving proper care, what if we have an instant repeat just two months later? Then the mom tells me she will have to pay for her daughter to be there for the allotted time. Pay? Since when do working students pay? It’s not a licensed camp or anything. What the heck? And would that money be keeping her from going to horse shows? On the other hand, the mom might be trying to get rid of her daughter. They have a history of problems together, as most younger teenagers tend to create. I told her maybe we should sit down and think about this for a minute, maybe meet and figure out what some options might be. We set up a meeting for Monday to talk about it. Later today, when my friend leaves a message on my machine saying it was not her idea, but the kids, I am doubly suspicious.

This is probably why I don’t have many close friends. I can’t really say no, since ultimately, it’s not my child, but I also know C has no idea what this family is really like. Flaky and irrational are the first two words that come out of my mouth to describe the mom. And airheaded. I mean, I gave her instructions once to drive the girls from the horse show in Aiken directly west to the airport in Georgia, which should have taken 45 minutes (on one road). Two hours later, she calls me wondering why she is seeing signs for 95. I asked her if she drove east instead of west but she had no clue, only that she was seeing signs for 95. She was in a rental car, no less, which was supposed to be returned to Georgia, and after obviously missing the flights had to just drive home. Wow, all I could do was laugh, and get drunk over it. I couldn’t believe it. What was supposed to be a four hour commute, took two days. The girls were so wound up after that, they refused to drive anywhere with her. To make matters worse, she finally persuades the car rental place to receive the car at BWI(pays the fine), piles all of the luggage into her own car in the park and ride, drives off, gets 20 minutes from home when M (her daughter) realizes her phone has been left in the rental and they turn around and go back! I was shocked the rest of the girls didn’t kill her right on the spot! I would have!  So, yes, I have reservations about a spur of the moment “working student” position at C’s farm. On the other hand, I am not beyond a little “I told you so” to my “friend”. Let her figure it out.

Okay, okay, I was a bit stupid on my mountain bike the other day, when J and I went to Germantown with the Norwegian guy and he led us around the park, then showed us how to do more technical things like jump logs, etc. It was for sure not his fault, I just got cocky about what I was doing and missed the last log. We were doing so well up until that point! We rocked the trail, which was totally forgiving, and no major hills to speak of, so we cruised it in around forty minutes. I wasn’t tired at the end of it at all, although the other two were, and was considering doing the trail again, but J wanted to learn how to jump logs properly. So, we headed to the little area in the woods with logs set up and different heights and got a lesson from the Nor. guy. He was actually really great with us, because we are slow learners, and crack ourselves up when we mess up, so he has to wait for the laughter to subside before speaking again. In the beginning, J would groan or hiccup over each bump and all I could squeak out was “i’m scared”  and it was a good half hour before we could really figure it out. By this time, however, we were getting really tired, and had about enough of lifting our bikes off the ground, so decided to head in. I turned around to catch the last log on the way back to the parking lot, but as I was heading toward it, something didn’t feel quite right. I hesitated, slowing down too much and hit the first part of the log with too little momentum. I tried to pedal, which you are not supposed to do until you are on top of the obstacle, so my pedal caught the log and stopped all momentum. My front tire turned right suddenly, and before I knew what was happening, my body was thrust into the end of the handlebar knocking the wind right out of me, and I flipped over onto the ground, completely entangled in the bike and in excruciating pain. I had no control over anything at that point and was making these groaning sounds that I was wishing would stop, and clutching my stomach at the same time. They both rushed over, and removed my helmet, undid my Camelbak which was pinching my chest, and waited for me to catch my breath. It took a good fifteen minutes for me to stop making horrible noises, but it switched to cursing as soon as I realized how much pain I was in. I muttered ”Fuck” about fifty times before switching to “Holy Shit”. I let them remove the bike from under me, but continued to lay on my Camelbak and writhe around in the dirt. J was looking for my phone to take a picture, but I shooed her off with my middle finger. My vocabulary altered a little to ”I can’t believe I just did that” and ”That was so embarrassing”. And I  really was embarrassed to have made such a scene in front of the Nor. guy I had only met once previously, and was not making a good second impression! Jesus! He was supposed to be our fearless leader for the summer and look what I have done!

I limped back to the parking area, where J loaded our bikes and I cleaned myself up with a towel I had packed, marveling at the dirt that was coming off of me. J suggested I check my stomach for broken skin, so I lifted my shirt and looked down to this perfect imprint of my handlebar right below my sternum already turning a bit green. It looked like a bulls eye. They both laughed at me, but all I could do was groan a bit more, this was not the new tattoo I was envisioning for myself this year! It still hurt, and I thought maybe I might be getting dizzy, so we clambered back into my Mazda, J driving, and the poor Nor. guy going home probably a little disconcerted. J could not keep from replaying the event over and over again, and I was so mortified at the whole thing, but laughing was not helping me. At one point she was imitating me making those idiotic noises, and when I said “owwww, stop!” because the laughter was killing me, she was like “no, it was more like, ehhhhhhhhhhhh” I had to punch her to get her to stop, before she realized I was protesting her discription of me on the ground. This made her laugh even harder. I think I had to cry a little to keep from convulsing. God it hurt. She is cold. We stopped for beer, then returned to her house, showered, changed, and headed for the pool. There was very little else I wanted to do, the more I moved, the more pain I was in. I roasted one side of my body, then went to turn over….yikes! not happening! I tried to dip in the pool to cool off, but when the cold water hit my waist, the tightening of my muscles sent pain searing through my stomach, so I gave up, and after a few minutes sitting in a chair with may back to the sun, we headed back. When I was feeling a bit stronger, I decided it was time to head home, where I sat on the couch and didn’t move until the next morning. When the cat jumped on top of me, I screamed out, sending my husband running for a pillow to keep on top of  my stomach, and preventing a repeat of  that horrible moment.

I did not sleep paticularly well. In the morning, I decided it was a good idea to make sure I hadn’t broken a rib, so after feeding the horses, I drove to Patient First. They weren’t so much worried about the ribs, as the point of impact probably had caused some internal damage. So, they sent me down the road for a ct scan. Sure enough, following the ct scan, I was heading down the road to Sinai – emergency room no less. I had a 4 inch laceration in my liver, caused from the fall, that was leaking fluid into the rest of my body. I had to endure the emergency room with puking patients and drunks for over an hour before being ushered to my own room. My mom and husband sat with me, clearly uncomfortable and nervous, and wishing for immediate answers. We had a great ER nurse (also a mountain biker) who did his best to cheer me up. I was only apprehensive when the intern from the surgical team came in and viewed my chart. He didn’t make eye contact other than to introduce himself, and was gone before we had a chance to ask why he was even there. Eventually I was told I was being admitted to the hospital, and was shuffled around to more spaces until I finally landed in my own room. I told my mom to go home, because she was overly exhausted, but my husband waited for more news. No one had told us anything at this point, just kept taking blood, taking my blood pressure, or hooking me up to monitors. It was pretty frustrating.

Around 10:30 pm, twelve hours after first stepping into Patient First, a surgeon visited me. She told me they would be drawing blood from me every few hours and looking for the count, whatever that means, and if it dropped below a certain amount, I would have to be opened up for sure. Nice news. With that I sent Tom home, and tried to think positive thoughts. Nurses came all night taking blood, and a team of surgeons visited me at some point, but I don’t remember what they said. In the morning, I had a visit from the head surgeon who tried to answer all of my questions, and luckily I was a bit more awake,so could pay attention. He was concerned, but seemed to think I was basically out of the woods, so started to give me warnings about what I should expect for the future. No exercise for 6 weeks. No riding, no biking, no nothing. Swimming was ok in moderation and so was walking, but people could be bed-ridden for weeks on end with this kind of injury. Christ, not good. I asked him about driving, but he responded with “what if you get into an accident?”. My feeling was if I crashed the horse trailer, I would not be that concerned with my liver. I would probably have other injuries. He gave up after a while, and moved on, so I filled in everyone on the status and tried to get some sleep.

I had a visitor later in the day and we amused ourselves with chatter, mainly me making excuses for wanting to do different sports, and how grateful everyone should be that I didn’t land myself in the hospital more often. She grew bored of me after a while, claiming that she didn’t want to pay more than four dollars for parking, so she had better get moving. There were several messages and phone calls, but no more visitors, and it was looking like the hospital was growing bored of me , too.  They were ready to get me out of there. It didn’t happen until quite late, but it did finally happen. I was being set free with the strictest instructions not to let anything impale my stomach and do more damage to my liver. Right on.

Home was good to see, and my bed called me almost immediately after entering the door, but I was gross and needed a shower. I maneuvered around gently, and after feeling fresher, I had to turn in. It was an amazing sleep, I must admit, and I am not much of a sleeper. Waking the next morning, I was really excited to smell coffee. I checked myself before trying to get out of bed, and wasn’t in as much pain as the day before, but definitely uncomfortable. There were a hundred emails to sort through, but my biggest concern was whether or not to cancel going to Loudon with the girls. I hated to cancel anything if I could just stand there and tell them what to do. And I needed the money. I called the girls and told them I would head to school to watch them ride. They got themselves organized, and I drove over, just a few minutes from the townhouse, greeted all of the concerned hens that had heard about my adventure, and settled into the ring. It was not half bad, as they really already know how to ride, and I can just tell them how good they look, point to a few jumps to hop over, and done! We repeated this process a couple of times, then my mother called.

She was wondering why the hell I wasn’t home with my feet up on the couch, and basically ripped me a new one. I told her to come get me for lunch, and to try and calm down, but she was anything but calm. She had told her brother what had happened and he responded with a dozen examples of how that exact fall could easily have killed me instantly, tossing her into a whole new level of worry I hadn’t expected. Lunch was disappointing, not to mention depressing, and I was getting irritated with her severe attachment to me. She was saying things like “you are not allowed to die before me!” and “what if you collapse in front of the girls! they won’t know what to do!” Cripes, they would do what normal people do. Call 911. It’s not like we are out in the wilderness with no cell phone, trying desperately to find civilization! We will be surrounded by nosy people, drawn to drama like ants to food. I am not believing what I am hearing, and wondering if my mother needs prozac. Jeepers, I am 37 years old!

I feel her pain, but enough already, I can’t live with her bugging me every time something goes wrong. She has so much else to worry about, and will exhaust herself over this in no time.  I am still going to Loudon, but I will take the best care possible, have no doubt.

My boss wouldn’t let me use the school truck this weekend to take kids to the horse show, said she needed it for mulch. I hate when I have to get angry over stupid situations.

I took back a client I had fired last year. Times are tough. I have a ridiculous goal of trying to pull in a grand a week. That’s not going to happen. Especially when I am wasting time on a blog.

Apparently only some of us are allowed to teach at school on a holiday, but when I pointed it out, our boss spewed out an email forbidding us to teach on any holiday or snow day. Bitch.

I laughed so hard at this girl making fun of  herself at a party last night by telling stories of her trying to bike and snowboard  with her boyfriend, I almost peed on myself. She has this huge belly laugh that is raucous and loud, we were also laughing at her, as well as with her. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I think the neighbors were about to call the police on us for having too much fun. She was the best at describing her inabilities to climb a hill, or stand on her board. Her boyfriend had tried to get her to buy the more suitable snowboard for her skill level (0), but she insisted on the board that matched her pants. When the snowboard instructor stared at her board, then back at her, she had no idea what was wrong with the picture, and started whining hysterically that she couldn’t give up her board, so they let her try it. She never got up once. Her boyfriend is a tall Norwegian, ridiculously athletic, and she is…….not. Oh my lord it was hysterical. And God love her for trying!  She will attempt anything, no matter how bad she is at it! She would describe herself (with animation) trying to figure out how to change gears on her bike, and being unsuccessful everytime, changing gears too fast – click click click click click – and panting “why (pant) are (pant) there (pant) soooo (pant) many (pant) gears! (huge pant)Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, click, click, click, click, click. fall over.  I got their email address.

Today brings more rain, which is why I have time to blog, and I am so tired from yesterdays activities, that i don’t mind my night lesson group is canceled. Although it is not helping with the money intake. I need to think of more things to do to bring the cash in. It was suggested that I try riding more horses in the Poolesville area, but I would need to carry more insurance for that. I thought of running an ad in the Eq mag explaining I can school your horse, help make a video, and get it up on u-tube, but I may get all the crazies.

Is it time for an adventure or is it time to work harder?  I cant quite figure it out. Where should I go? Should I work more on the website? How many people will tell me they can’t go to Saugerties this summer? Should I go visit E soon in CA? This rain really sucks. I can’t do anything in it. Except be miserable. Should I make hotel reservations? Should I go for a walk? Does Jason Bourne ever hurt himself in any of his movies? Can I be more fit?I’m going to get more coffee and teach better. Then I am going to feed my horses. Then I am going to come back home and drink wine all night waiting for my husband to return. What a life. I should have gone spelunking. My camelback arrived today. It is raining so much I may never mountain bike again.

I am struggling with being too furious to speak with anyone, or getting too drunk to care. The incompetence that I have just witnessed rips me in half, allowing a demon like figure to rise from my innards, spewing hatred and evil over mankind.

Why should one child be a victim to irresponsibility? My afternoon started with a message from her mother that M was having an anxiety attack and would like to miss her lesson. J then informs me that there was a huge mixup at the airport the night before, and somehow M’s flight was scheduled to have left Saturday, instead of Sunday, normal day of departure following IEA Nationals., so they probably didn’t get home until late last night. The mom then sends me a text that no one had given her her medication over the weekend, so she was a litlle off balance. WTF??????? J refused to accept responsibility, saying she never had possession of the meds, and when I sought out an explanation from C, she simply said she forgot! FUCKING FORGOT??????!!!!!!WHO THE FUCK FORGETS MEDS? This poor kid suffers day in and day out from OCD and acute anxiety, and she fucking forgot to give her meds? I refuse to accept this and in my head I lose it. I have worked so hard on keeping this kid in one piece when we are on the road, or at home, or wherever, and it gets blown to pieces in one weekend from incompetence.

My husband told me there was nothing I could do, which is his usual response, thats nice dear, now shut up and go away. So, screw him. He hates kids with a passion. I tried venting to C, but she just told me I was burned out, and needed to quit working at school. Fuck her, I was just pissed off. Then she tells me M’s mother has been begging her to take her for the summer! WTF?  how is that going to help? What was she thinking? Now, I’m pissed off at her. I don’t consider myself burned out at all – I show up every single day and give it my all for every kid! What the heck is going on? What is wrong with people?

The computer held emails from other parents that had concerns, and now I’m really hating Nationals. Cripes, everything is a mess. All I want is to catch a little break! Sell one horse, even. It’s just not going to happen. I’m doomed to be miserable!

There are way too many things going on, now a house had burned near the farm, killing two people, next door to G’s now ex-husband.

Run! Hide! Gala dinner tonight, class reunion party tomorrow if I get back from Difficult Run on time… Three eventers running around in the rain. Yikes. Needed a mental health day and I haven’t left the house yet. I started watching movies, my husband left for Michigan for the weekend. I don’t even know why. Actually, I am kind of pissed about that. Why can’t I go visit someone for the weekend without him? How is that even fair? Why did I even allow that to happen? I am stuck here cleaning the fucking house, putting his shit away, and its raining so I don’t even want to go outside. Good Lord what an asshole. I am going to stew over this for a while. Damn him. He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go. This is why I dream about alternate realities, and the alternate realities become my obsession and reason to wake up in the morning. I go through life not caring about anything, because I don’t believe it’s real. This fucking townhouse isn’t real for me. I hate it. My car is just a mode of transportation, I don’t care for it. I only love my animals. Material things are meaningless. I don’t care about the countertops,  the hardwood floors, the fucking coffee grinder. I want to complete a bucket list, go on adventures, see the world. Go back to Holland. I am so aggravated. I guess I should get out of the house. Fuck.

How many people can suffer at once? There is so much I don’t know where to begin. Bam knowing Francie and her beautiful children in Middletown getting murdered with chain saws and hedge trimmers, the Towson murders, T’s cancer I don’t have any idea how to deal with and just makes me sad, V dying and not even being told, the swine flu that is terrifying everyone, Joe went to the hospital last night, Devon just informed me its on her campus, and Liz just donated Tonya to school, giving me back one of the loves of my life, and I don’t know whether to cry or be elated.

I had an MRI on my knee today, an interesting experience, as I was terrified of moving and stressed about the fact that my knee is not holding me up anymore. The doctor had told me he thought I had early onset of arthritis, and to cut back on all outdoor activities. Get real.

I would listen to the technician, and doze off with weird dreams about horses and kids, and then feel my body jerk or shiver, and then open my eyes to find myself still in the room with a cube, scared the woman would see me move. She had put a blanket over my body, but my arms were across my chest, weighing me down and  impeding my breathing, causing me to tense up and I could feel my foot cramp under the strain of trying to keep still. I would try to breathe to my foot, but feel the tension in my back and not be able to relax. The muscles in my leg would freeze, and I could feel myself wanting to twitch, but at the last second I would be able to overpower the reflexes, and melt into the table. I could hear her voice, but she wasn’t talking to me, she was just repeating a practiced speech, delivered a hundred times a week, probably not even knowing if I was male or female. I never responded to her, and she never questioned my silence. I was exhausted by the end of it, but decided to leave the offices heading toward Timonium, rather than home. I wanted to go climbing, but it was still too early for it to be open so I went shopping at Old Navy first.

It felt weird to buy clothes since it has been ages, but I really enjoyed trying things on, and convinced myself it was overdue. It was – I really need some new clothes, I have been wearing the same shorts and tops for three years. The same jeans, the same hoodies. Good grief, the same ten outfits all year!

I was really nervous about going climbing alone, but it turned into a fantastic day. As I was putting on my shoes a familiar woman asked me where my harness was and I told her I needed to work on bouldering, but she said if I changed my mind, there was a group of women meeting to climb today. She’s like an expert, so jeepers, I didn’t know about that.  I started out trying to boulder, and was pretty unsuccessful, so I went upstairs to traverse on the shorter walls. That improved after a while, so I went back downstairs and stared at the bouldering wall. I found a V1 that looked pretty doable, and after three attemps, made it to the top. I was then tempted by another trickier path, when a guy came around the corner and tried to help me. I was sweating it out pretty bad by this time and looking like a drunk elephant hanging off the rocks, but he showed me how to do it anyway. I gave it a few more futile efforts, but my body was wearing out. The one thing I was most proud of was how he showed me to jump onto the wall and hold onto a hold. On the tenth jump I stuck it! And that was it. He asked if I wanted to top rope, which I did, so he belayed me for three climbs, the one lady popping up to throw advice my way every few minutes. I belayed him for a couple climbs as well until we were both pretty cooked. I got his email, he and his wife live five minutes from me, and he promised to send me info on outdoor climbs. It was great.

When you have great days, it bleeds over into your work for the afternoon, and I had two great lessons, for some reason. The girls actually learned something, and Erica almost learned how to ride. She was more shocked than I was, and I made everyone give a round of applause for her efforts. They were all good, though, the event kids making a good attempt at listening and focusing, and I for once didn’t leave disappointed.

I visited Tonya before I left, she looks beautiful as always, and I am still overwhelmed to have her back.  I just do not understand how this world works anymore. She is truly an incredible animal, but as long as she is here, am I going to be trapped again, fighting for what is best for her?  The door to escape just shrunk a little bit, I think. What if there is no match? What if she gets hurt? oh great the agony of motherhood.

Several days have gone by with me feeling very ill, and I hate that. I managed to get a lot accomplished despite feeling awful, but I am ready to move on. I videotaped sales horses over the weekend, got them up on utube, made some calls, tried to get the ball rolling again, but this weather is making progress slow. There still seems to be a small handful of people out there looking, but I can not quite get anyone to cut a check. Please people, help me get back to Europe!

Watching the World Cup in Las Vegas on the computer all weekend always gets me depressed. I miss International Showjumping! I have dreams at night about it. I wake up in the morning feeling wasted, itching to get back there. I kind of wonder now what people are making of me. I hadn’t given it much thought before, but now I really wonder. Do they think I am an underacheiver, never following through? Alan was the closest to bringing it to the forefront, claiming when I was working with him, that my talents had been wasted for years and I had never been utilized. Does that mean my accomplishments with the girls are or have been futile? What if I had never returned to school to redesign the program, and never took the time to teach all of those girls to ride. Does anyone think it’s been a good thing? Would they have been happy with a more mediocre trainer and I could have moved earlier? Does anyone think I am nice or has input? It seems like there are lot of trainers getting lots of recognition, but how much do I need?

I always thought of my mother as the one needing to be in the limelight more often, but maybe thats what I am lacking. Being more famous. Do I need to be famous? Then I would really have to think about what other people are saying about me. Feeling about me, thinking about me, hating me, loving me. Do I really need to be written about in the paper? Should I try for a few months to get noticed, be loud, creative, and assertive? Ambition is a tricky thing to live with.

I do think of myself as never following through with my own personal dreams and desires. I  have settled with making my family happy, but not me. I am too scared to hurt people, to make them sad. So I avoid doing the things that would make me a superstar. That is why I freak out and fear fracturing all of the time. I plug along in an abyss, obeying a husband, obeying my parents, obeying the school, appealing to every one’s needs. A great role model. And nothing to show for it.

Of course, this could be my punishment for my temper. My temper is quite ridiculous at times, and I cannot seem to control it.  I do not deserve to be around the horses when I can’t seem to get a grip on myself. It started when I was a teenager, and hasn’t gone away. It has improved since I have had help in the barn and can keep the frustration levels to a minimum, but it needs to get even better. I need zen. A  lot of it. I’ll make it disappear entirely to get what I want. I feel so lazy, this crap shouldn’t be happening.

I really don’t belong here, and I am getting closer every day to losing it all together, freaking out and disappearing! And yet, those days are long gone that one can rebel like a little kid. A sense of urgency is closing in on me and when I wake up in the morning I realize I have spent the night having nightmares, and don’t even know where I am. I want to be in Holland, with the sound of horses kicking the walls, banging on the doors to be fed, hearing the first person to open the door and turn on the lights be greeted by the stallions with their supercharged whinnies.

I don’t want to be living a life revolved around my mother’s passion, she is sucking me in with the truest intentions, but I can see myself cringing at the smell of wet dog. Yet, she has no one else, and this is what we do.

I may even want my own website now, and give up on the one I am building for CH. The possibilities are endless if I can run it from overseas and post videos of horses I find.

The hardest thing to listen to was L coming back from Holland and Germany and describing every detail about what she saw over there. I wanted to cry. She is pushing me to be brave and leave everything behind, insisting it can work, convinced I would be so much better off to do it now, and not wait any longer. Cripes, it’s been 15 years. How come I haven’t felt any different for 15 years? She tempts me, knowing I don’t want to hear it, but at the same time knowing it’s the only way I will keep it in the forefront of my mind. It makes me sick. I think literally makes me sick, because I have had this sinus infection for a month now, that won’t go away, and now my throat is sore again. I went a year without being sick! WTF?

How does one time an upheaval. Bucket Lists become way more of a priority that’s for sure. At least mine. To hide the boredom I really have to occupy myself with all of the other things, and the sense of accomplishment of completing a goal is looming overhead. A bike race, trip, 5k, outdoor climb. I am prepared to sell everything in my house at a yard sale, started filling my dining room with odds and ends, glassware, old wedding gifts, shit we never use anymore.

I have become quite frugal, refusing to spend money on anything, figuring ways to get other people to buy the shit I really do need, trading services. I hitched a ride downtown the other night to avoid paying for gas. I’m telling people they can pay me in gift cards to my feed store instead of cash, so I don’t have to put out for the feed. They like this because it goes on their credit card. Coupons are big, and I have discovered the cheapest places to buy food. I filled up an entire basket of produce last night and more, carrying juice in my hands to the checkout – oranges, apples, asparagus, bananas, pears, orange nectar, mango nectar (smoothies) all for ten dollars. I almost passed out. It will last me over a week. Ten bucks a week! Davids in Columbia ( which I can get my friends husband to drive me to) puts half of their food on sale if it gets close to the expiration date. I like this. Granola bars, cereal, packaged dry foods all for a dollar.  Every penny saved gets me closer to Europe.