After the fall...

I was in bed, almost asleep and my husband laid his hand on my thigh. He quickly moved it and said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." I guess he could feel the swollen bruise. It didn't hurt all that much and I said "It's okay, it didn't hurt." He was quiet for a few minutes and said "you really could have gotten hurt. He could have broken your leg."

And I realized I had never considered that. I certainly could have had a broken leg from a 1200 lb horse stepping on me. It never occurred to me until he said that. It was kind of a sobering moment.

"Yeah, you're right," I said. The funny thing is, on the way to lessons that day, I'd thought about not wearing my helmet. I knew I'd be riding a well broke horse, my instructor's horse. She knew him, knew his quirks, it was a beautiful day, the helmet's all hot and cumbersome and I wasn't going to be doing anything but going around a ring like I always did.

I didn't say anything about it, and once we got there, I didn't even think about it anymore and just automatically put my helmet on once we started to the ring. I fell on the top left side of my head when I fell off. I'm sure it was bruised, because it hurts worse than my leg. As I was laying there thinking about falling off without a helmet on, the thought then occurred to me "what if he'd stepped on my head instead of my leg?"

This horse was a national winner. He's a show horse, he's used to the ring, he's used to being ridden, he knows his stuff. He's sixteen years old, not a young untrained horse. Jessi had shown him for years, he was her show horse. She knows him. We were just out for a lesson, nothing overly dangerous.

I'll never consider contemplating riding without a helmet again. Nor will my kids ever be allowed to ride without one. Even in a very controlled, predictable situation, accidents can happen.

The thought of my 4-year old sitting on her horse watching me fall, without a helmet and then being stepped on...turns my stomach. Thankfully I had it on, and wasn't seriously hurt, and she had a good laugh at my expense, and we learned first hand the importance of wearing the right gear. But it could have been a whole lot different.

Took a tumble

So, riding lessons today for the first time in what feels like ages! Yay! There's been horse show after horse show, and the state fair, and on and on.

There was a benefit show today, but thankfully not all the horses went. So I got to ride my instructor's horse - Spot. He's an appaloosa, and a big, brown, beautiful spotless appaloosa. She had me wear spurs, which I've never done before.

We warmed up and did some circles and walked around, and started to trot. Did that a few times and once, he just kept going faster and faster. I couldn't get him to slow down. He wasn't listening to "whoa" very well. Finally I got him to stop and Jessi walked over and said "I think you might have had the spurs in him." Crap. I'd totally forgotten about them. I couldn't feel them, I knew my heels weren't on him but I couldn't feel the spurs. Okay, mistake realized. She helped me figure out positioning of my foot so the spurs weren't on him and I was super conscious of them being there after that. We trotted some more and all went fine. Spurs remained safely off his belly and we were doing great.

We rode a while and Jessi looked at me and said "You want to canter?" Woohoo! She tells me what to do, and how to get him to do it. "Drive the outside spur into him and kiss, just keep the spur there till he gets going." Spur again. Okay. I can do this.

We get to the long stretch of the ring, I'm mentally ready, know exactly what to do. I give him the reigns, give him a good kick and hold, and kiss. All hell breaks loose. He didn't go into a canter, he went into some horribly bouncy lope/trot/run thing. Because I've never cantered and had no idea what it was supposed to feel like, I'm thinking "Why would anyone want to do this?!" and I hang on. Sitting the trot is one thing, this was like trying to sit an earthquake. Jessi starts saying "pull him in" and I'm thinking "oh noo... this is just what Doc did." I remember the spurs, make sure that my heels are out of him, actually lost the stirrups in trying to be sure my heels weren't in him. I was trying not to pull too hard on his face because I didn't want him to run through it (ala Doc) and "WHOA" just was not working. We make it most-way around the ring and Jessi says "Bring him in here." She was standing in the middle with my 4 year-old on the old little horse. Surely he's not going to run into them and he'll stop. I guess that's what Jessi was thinking too.

So I turn him into the middle, and he heads straight for Sam's butt. The horse my daughter is sitting on. By this point, my butt is airborne out of the saddle, I'm trying to hold on with my legs, stirrups dangling, we're headed at my child running at a trot/lope. Looking back, I know what happened.

He barely missed Sam's butt because I pulled him back the other way and Jessi had Sam move forward when she realized that Spot wasn't stopping. That moment that I realized that my child was in the path, I didn't care about staying in the saddle. I didn't care about anything but keeping Spot away from her. I'm pretty sure Sam slept through the whole thing.

Once we got past her, I'm not really sure what happened. I'd lost my balance, my butt was popping really high out of the saddle, and next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Head first. I was face down in the sand thinking "Well...okay." Jessi comes running and the first thing she says is "OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY! Are you okay?!" And I'm laying, looking at the dirt thinking "I have no idea" and kind of taking a mental assessment of where all my parts are. She says "I think he stepped on you! Can you roll over? Are you okay?"

By this point, I've kinda pushed up on my arms and I think all that hurts is my head. Jessi's mom headed over when she saw my butt popping out of the saddle because she was pretty sure I was going down.

I think I'm okay and start to get up and her mom Dee yells "Are you okay? He stepped on you!" I get up and brush the sand off. My daughter is laughing. Dee has Spot now, Jessi's standing there like a deer in the headlights and I'm thinking "Well that was fun."

Dee said he stepped on me, and my leg kind of hurt, but I couldn't tell if it was from the bite Anya gave me, or if it was from falling, or if he had stepped on me. It wasn't nearly as bad as when I got bit, so I was pretty sure I was fine. I took my helmet off and kinda walked a minute and aside from my head hurting, I was good. Dee's holding Spot still and Jessi asked if I wanted to quit for the day. I was okay, I didn't see any reason to stop and said "No, I'm good." Dee said "You've got a kid watching, you have to get back on!" We all laughed and Dee said she'd fallen off a horse when Jessi was about 8. I think she said they were on a trail ride and Jessi was behind her, the horse spooked and she was bucked off and because Jessi was there watching, she had to get back on. It's one of those times you know whatever you do is going to make an impression on your kid.

Needless to say, we took the spurs off at that point. I've never had a problem making a horse go. It's the stopping that I have a hard time with.

Dee had also told me a story a few weeks before about when she backed one of their horses into an electric fence by accident. The horse got shocked, obviously, kicked, and threw Dee over his head. First she landed on the saddle horn, then she went over. He kind of hopped around her and stopped and looked back at her. She said he looked so sorry and was like "Oh gosh are you okay?" Turns out, that was Spot!

She said he kinda danced to try and side step over me when I was falling. My leg didn't hurt near as bad as I thought it should if a horse stepped on me. (Well, and compared to the bite it was nothing.) I wasn't even sure if he had stepped on me until I got home.

My husband had taken our son while we were at lessons, and thankfully he didn't see any of this. I thought maybe I just wouldn't say anything. He's not a fan of horses to begin with. I was okay, no big deal, right? He came back before we were finished and our daughter, in all her four year old glory yells "MOMMY FELL OFF THE HORSE!"

My husband looked at me, sitting up on the horse. Obviously I'm okay cause I'm up there.

He's like "She what?"

And so she yells it again, this time a little bit more enjoyment in her voice. "MOMMY FELL OFF THE HORSEY!" And she laughs! Full out laughs. Then my husband laughs.

I look at Jessi and say "Nothing is a secret in our house."

I trot past and my husband says, "You're going to have to give me the details later."

"There are no details," I said and kept on going. Which of course made him laugh more.

Once I got back on, we worked on "whoa" a lot. He'd been leased out over the summer and the people who had him apparently didn't enforce "whoa." Jessi said he would stop from a full run instantly before, legs splayed if he had to, but whoa meant whoa. We trotted and once I got him to a good stop from a trot, I really wanted to try to canter again. Yeah, I know.

My daughter was done by that point, at 4 years old, she only wants to do so much. I told Jessi I wanted to try it again, but I didn't want to have to worry about her and so Dee took her and Sam out of the ring.

We walked through it again. Heel drive, loose reigns, lean back, kiss. I can do this. Jessi said "If he starts doing that bouncy thing, pull him back in and make him stop." Right, we've got "whoa" again, we can do this.

We come to the corner, headed into the long stretch of the ring. I drive in my heel with a kiss and off he goes. This time, into a canter. Jessi's yelling "Just sit, just sit! Don't do anything, just sit it!" And I feel like I'm floating on air. It was awesome. I yelled "Oh my god!" He didn't do it long before he went back into that bouncy trot thing. (They call it his "trope.") I pulled him to a stop and was just grinning, completely on a high.

"Oh my god that was SO worth it!" I said to Jessi.

"It's awesome isn't it?"

"Oh my god, yes!" It was like a drug. I wanted more. "I want to do it again."

"Okay!" she said. I did it a few more times, each time he held the canter a little longer. The last time he held it nearly a full trip around. When he finally broke stride and started troping again, I pulled him and did a completely involuntary and very loud "WOOOHOOOOOO!!!" I was euphoric. Oh to be able to do that every day!

At that moment, it completely made sense to me why cowboys yell "Yeeehaw!" I walked Spot in, he got some apple and lots of petting and I smiled like an idiot all the way home.

My jeans were full of sand from sliding on my hip. I've never had that much sand anywhere without being at the beach. I looked at my leg and there was a bruise starting. Yep, probably got stepped on. Within a few hours, I had a perfect hoof print bruised into my thigh. Except Spot has front shoes. I think he stepped on me with a front hoof because there's a darker bruising where the shoe would be on his hoof.

I said to my husband in the car on the way home, "If I had to fall every time in order to do that, I think it'd be worth it." He just looked at me like I was crazy. I probably am. But I suspect anyone who has ever felt that feeling would say the same thing.

Finding the one

I kept looking, didn't find much. A family type horse is hard to come by. I found a few, but none that just fit.

I found a beautiful filly who made my heart skip a beat. She was young though, and I was looking for an older horse, one with experience and training and preferably a gelding. So I kept looking. Nothing.

I was talking to my mom one day and she said "I keep thinking you should get a mare." I hadn't even really looked for mares because everyone recommended a gelding, even my mom. I opened up the search criteria to include mares, looked for something in the price range I wanted, and close enough to home to be feasible.

I started reading ads to her, telling her about this horse or the other and I came across the young filly again. I read the ad, I don't remember now exactly what it said. Something about a horse like this would only get better with time. As I was reading the ad to my mom, I had this uncanny feeling of deja vu. I even stopped and said "Oh my god, I'm deja vu'ing this!"

She really was younger than I wanted, but for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling. I emailed the owner, didn't hear anything back. I'd been emailing on several horses and none had fit what I wanted, or gotten back to me, had already been sold, something that boiled down to a no-go.

A few days later I decided to call them. I tried a few times and got no answer. I tried on the way to pick my husband up from work, and got someone. I explained that I was interested in this filly, she was younger than I really wanted, but I kept coming back to her. I asked for more information, the lady told me about her. I asked some questions, she answered them. We don't have a horse trailer, so we were going to have to find some way to get her here from 4+ hours away. She said they would deliver her for a fee, she'd talk to her husband and find out what he'd charge. She called back and told me a price for bringing her to us, which I thought was really very reasonable considering the distance. I said to her "I'm really, really interested in her." The lady said "Then you'd better really, really pay for her today. I've got someone coming with cash and a trailer to look at her tomorrow at 1pm."

At which point, I had to make a decision. Buy this horse, sight unseen, going off what this lady said, or pass her by. She'd told me that she'd been answering emails about her non-stop for the last week.

Here's her ad picture:



You can see why all the interest.

I had the money to buy her, but it was in cash. She needed a bank wire transfer. It was getting late. I told her I'd get back to her, I didn't know if my bank would do that, but I'd find out and I'd be in touch shortly.

I called my mom and told her. I said "I really don't know what to do. I think she's the one but I've never seen her. I can't buy a horse I've never ridden or even seen!"

We talked about it and finally my mom said "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'd get her."

So, long story short, I did. We signed contracts that night, faxed them and sent the wire transfer the next morning. She was delivered nearly 3 weeks later. My husband was sure I was insane, he's probably still sure. He's not a horse person. It was impossible to explain it to him so he would understand.

She looked remarkably like the unicorn I'd had on my bedspread, my pillow, my sheets, my curtains, my walls as a little girl. All she needed was the horn and a rainbow behind her. The bottom right corner of that picture where she's running, that was the exact image I lived and slept with for years. To see her, real, not a drawing on my bed...I just couldn't explain it, but I knew she was mine.

Courtesy of the magic that is ebay:



I read once that deja vu is our way of letting ourselves know that we're on the right path. Before we come to this life, we make a chart and pencil in those little moments of recognition. When we have that feeling of having been there, said that, done that, thought that, we did. It was just before we got here. So when we have that little prick of "wow I'm having deja vu" it's our spirit's way of saying "Yes, this is where you should be." And I believe that. I've had it happen too much to be able to say otherwise. When I had that with this horse, talking to my mom about her, and when I saw that picture and realized what she looked like, there was no way I could let her go. She was mine. She was meant to be mine and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that.

When we finally got her here, she looked very little like the ad picture. She was beautiful, but she was so thin. She had no spark in her eyes. You could see all of her ribs almost. She didn't know what an apple or a carrot was. She'd sniff them and walk away. She had the saddest look in her eyes.



But she was mine, and she was perfect, and I saw none of it. I didn't care, it didn't matter. She was mine now and everything was going to be alright.

We let her settle in for a day, I didn't do too much with her, I didn't want to overwhelm her. The second day, I went out and brushed her. She stood to let me do it. I didn't have to tie her or chase her. That day I spent nearly two hours trying to comb out her mane. Her hair was matted, her forelock was in dredlocks. I didn't even touch it that day. I used nearly an entire bottle of detangling spray on her mane and finally got it to where I could brush it. She stood there the entire time.

I decided not to touch her tail that day, it was worse. There was poop in it, and it was all tangled and a huge mess. Over the next few days I worked on her forelock and finally got that under control. I gave her a bath. They'd said she liked a bath. Not so much that day, but we got it done. It took me several days to get her tail brushed and cleaned. It was horrific how badly she looked.

I'd go out to catch her and she was horrified of a rope. They said she haltered easily and so after a few days, I took the halter off of her. The next day I spent nearly an hour trying to get it back on her. She was very head shy, especially with a rope or a bucket. The bucket was worse. I'm sure she'd been hit with both.

I started carrying a lead rope with me every time I went out there. For a while I didn't do anything with it, just carried it. Eventually she realized it wasn't going to attack her and she'd give it a sniff every once in a while. Within a week or so, she didn't seem too bothered by the rope, and would come to me and stand to let me halter her.

We put her on better feed. I made horse cookies for her and she was getting those several times a day. She had hay and grass whenever she wanted it. Within two weeks, she started to put on weight. She started looking a little better, a little livlier. She started getting used to us, and would come right to me. She was gentle with the kids, and would let them pet her and brush her and feed her cookies.

The vet came and said she was underweight, but otherwise looked good. She was still skittish with them, and wasn't overly fond of standing and letting them do things to her, but for us she was doing better than when she got here so it felt like progress to me.

She spent almost 3 weeks without a new name. The breeders had named her Misty but it just didn't fit. Every once in a while, I'd go to the kitchen window, slide it open and call out whatever the "name of the day" was. She was completely uninterested and ignored me.

Her name meant something, and it was a feeling more than a word which made it harder to come up with. I finally thought I had it. Anya, meaning favor, grace. She was my saving grace. And in so many ways I was hers, too.

Again to the kitchen window, I opened it. She didn't even look up. She was a ways away with her back to me. I yelled "Anya!" She turned and looked at me, ears perked. She started toward me and I knew that was it. I went out and gave her lots of love and a cookie, and she's been Anya ever since.

There must be a better way

The barn I take lessons at is an hour away, so it's not an easy trip. It involves a lot of gas, usually a meal out, a cranky husband and at least one cranky kid. My husband was convinced there must be a better, cheaper, easier way for me to ride than to trek out there every week.

Of course, there would be. If we owned a horse and had it closer. We could lease a horse, and go whenever we wanted or whenever was convient. That would be more gas, though. Probably more meals out. I called and asked the barn owner if he knew of any horses for sale or lease cheap. That morning one of his boarders told him she had to sell her horse. I went out to see him. He was cheap. She agreed to come down a lot because I had cash. We could buy him and then move him someplace closer to us. I set up a time to go out with the instructor and ride him. He was a very, very big horse. He was very cranky. He did okay at first, and then took off like a bat out of hell and would not stop. He could only go so far and had to stop before he ran into something. Being the tenacious person I am, we tried this three or four times before I realized he wasn't going to stop. Three other girls rode him, one of them who rode him bareback on a pretty regular basis. He did the same thing to all of them.

So he's having a bad day. They all swore it was completely unlike him. But I was pretty sure he was a no. I didn't feel that I had the experience needed to ride him, and I certainly didn't want my daughter on him. His owner insisted she would come out on Saturday and we'd do it again, this time with her there. So out she comes, with a bag of treats. She tells me all the things you have to say to him first, and do first, and then she says she's been in an accident and can't ride and that's why she's selling him. So, we tack him up, I lead him out. He's already snorting. I get on, and we have a repeat of the previous time. His owner is sure I'm doing something wrong. (I'd already thought that the first day, until he did the exact same thing to three other girls who RODE him often.)

She says, "Do you want me to ride him?"

I told her "You're hurt and I'm not going to ask you to. But he's your horse, so if you wanna ride him, go ahead."

She marches over, I get down. She gets on him. They do a walk around the arena and he does the same thing to her. Over, and over, and over. She did her best to convince me that he just "needed this that and the other" and he'd be fine, and I most certainly could ride him. I told her that I didn't feel that I was a good enough rider for him, she insisted I was, I told her sorry, but no. I didn't feel comfortable putting my child on him if he was going to repeatedly do that.

She gave me some snarky comment like "I'm sorry you don't like my horse, he really is a good boy," while she was trying to make him stop running.

I told her, "It's not that I don't like your horse. I think he's a fine horse. He's just not the one for us."

I began looking for a place to board a horse closer to home, and started watching horse ads in our area. Surely something would come along.

A dream, realized

When I was a little girl, all I wanted was a horse. What little girl doesn't? I broke my Barbie's horse's leg when I was about 7, because I tried to ride it. We super-glued the leg back on. Unicorns covered my room, beautiful, magical horses with a perfect spiral horn that gave off shimmering rays of light. Their majestic manes blowing in the wind, wreaths of flowers around their necks, ribbons braided into their tails. They were on my sheets, on my walls, on my shelves, in my heart.

One of my earliest drawings (okay, it was really just a scribble) that my mom kept was a horse. How do I know? My mom says I asked her for my "'orsey" for days until she offered me the piece of paper I'd drawn on. She discovered that was what I had been asking for, and wrote under my little drawing "Horsey." That piece of paper is still around someplace.

All my life, I wanted a horse and I wanted to ride. I read Black Beauty a thousand times. I owned several copies. I checked out those "Learn to Draw a Horse" books from the library. I was never able to draw anything that even closely resembled a horse. Every birthday wish was for a horse.

We lived in town, there was no place to keep a horse. With adulthood and responsibilities of children and a family to take care of, the horse was a dream just pushed to the back of my heart. It shared space with all the other unfulfilled dreams and plans I'd had. The pictures came down, the sheets were folded in a closet somewhere, the stuffed animals and the porcelain figurines were packed away into boxes and lost along the way.

Life happened, and it happened hard, for a long time.

My youngest daughter saw horses everywhere we went. She wanted them all. Stuffed horses, pictures of horses, books about horses, tiny little plastic horses. She slept with as many horses as she could get piled into her bed with her. Her birthday was coming and I thought maybe riding lessons were in order. I knew she'd love it, but we hit a snag. She was too young for lessons. We live in a really small area and the riding instructor who had given lessons to her age group had "Decided to go to ECU to become a nurse." This was, of course, told to me with much disdain.

One of the stable owners I called suggested I take lessons instead, then I could help my daughter learn. The instructor called, she was new and had a lady who was much like me, new to horses and wanted to learn and was interested in a Saturday morning class. An hour a week, on Saturday mornings. All I could think was "An hour on a horse away from the kids. I am so in." She said she'd see what she could work out for a Saturday old-ladies class and would let me know. (Okay, she really didn't say the old-ladies part.)

Then I realized something. What if I was too fat to ride a horse? I could imagine showing up at some fancy barn with beautiful stables and dozens of perfect, gorgeous horses being ridden by well-toned, extremely athletic, perfectly-in-shape men and women. I imagined going up to someone and saying "I'm here for riding lessons" and them either:

1. laughing at me.

2. telling me I was way too fat to ride a horse and then laughing at me while all the other people in the barn laughed and pointed.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I called my mom. "Am I too fat to ride a horse?" My mom is a little woman. When she was riding horses before she had us kids, she weighted 100lbs fully clothed and soaking wet. "Honestly, I wouldn't ride a horse at your weight." My euphoria was gone. Okay, so I'll lose some weight, I was going to anyway, this is just more incentive.

Then I realized something else. I had to tell that riding instructor that I was too fat. That was harder than knowing I was too fat to ride. I had to actually verbalize it.

Thank god she didn't answer her phone and I got her voice mail. I think I'd have cried if she answered. I left a light-hearted message that I had realized I was probably much too overweight to ride a horse, and that it probably wouldn't be a good idea unless they happened to have a Clydesdale. Given that they probably didn't, I didn't want to hurt a horse or have the ASPCA called on me for animal torture, and so I was going to have to pass on the riding lessons.

I hung up the phone, thanked God that I'd never met this woman, that I'd never shown up at the fancy stables and been laughed at, and that I never had to talk to her again. Until she called back about an hour later.

She was awfully sweet about it, and asked without being rude how much I weighed. I told her. She told me what she weighed, which wasn't as much as I did, but wasn't that far away either, and that she rode without any problems, and that horses could carry full-grown men and all their stuff and asked me if I'd just come try. She had a horse in mind that was good, and well-built with a wide back (Good for that, cause my wide ass was gonna need it), not some tiny little Arabian fine-boned horse that I'd feel huge on.

So I agreed to one lesson. I'll go make a fool of myself once. I begged my husband not to stay and watch, because I knew I'd be mortified trying to get into the saddle. I searched mid-summer for a pair of boots. I bought a "high-impact" bra that didn't do much of anything. I steeled myself with the knowledge that at least the other lady going would be older than me.

I went. I fell in love. His name was Ranger. He was a gentle, smart, stubborn Appaloosa Quarter Horse cross. He had a spotted butt that was somehow really endearing. He had a sweet face. He didn't cry when he saw me coming. He didn't groan and collapse when I sat in the saddle. We had a nice ride, it felt like something I'd been doing my entire life. My knees cramped like crazy towards the end and I was shaky when I finally slid off. He didn't weep tears of joy when I got down. I apologized to him a hundred times and promised I'd bring him apples next time, and agreed to another lesson the following Saturday morning.

For the first time in longer than I could remember, I was excited. I was living for Saturday. I loved everything about it. I loved how he smelled, how his coat would shine after I'd groomed him, how his ears would turn to listen to me as I whispered how grateful I was to him for letting me ride him. I loved how he made me work, and learn. He was an incredible horse. I only got a handful of lessons with him, but I loved him. He was struck by lightning in a storm and killed. My husband, supportive man that he is, said I should have taken it as a sign when my lesson horse was struck by lightning.

The only sign I saw was that I was happier, I was less bitchy, I was looking forward to something I enjoyed and that made everything else seem a little less bad.

About this blog

The pieces will fit together at some point, the lines will be drawn and everything will fall into place. But not today. There's much too much to go into. There's too much heartache and injustice and pain to handle or believe all at once. And that's not the point of this blog anyway.

Facts:

I made some bad decisions.

I made some good decisions.

I made some bad decisions that I thought were good decisions.

I have six children. Four from my first marriage, and two from my present marriage.

My four oldest children live with their father.

I miss them dearly, every day and love them with all my heart.

I suffered from PTSD for many years as a result of my first marriage and the subsequent happenings (divorce, custody battles, etc).

I'm starting to feel alive again, almost six years later.

A phone call from a riding instructor made more difference than years of therapy and medications ever did.