And pre-Christmas blues

Actually, I had pre-Christmas blues instead of post-Christmas and WOW they were horrible. I wrote a cheery blog post two days before I had time off, I had talked with a counselor and I was feeling pretty darn great!

And then my last day of work, basically everything exploded and it was horrible.

I learned that two of our staff members were leaving, to add to the two who had already left in Dec. I went to the gym for lunch, and came back to work and was called in to my friend and former manager’s office urgently.

I was curious, wondering why she needed to see me so urgently?

Our friend and my former colleague had died that week. 😦

I was completely shocked, stunned and heartbroken. She is so young, only in her early thirties. I knew she had been sick, but I had no idea how bad her illness had been, and how long she had been in the hospital for. It was heartbreaking.

I numbly went back to my desk and felt terrible.

I stumbled through work that day, talking with our mutual friends and colleagues. I felt like I was sleepwalking, that this wasn’t happening to her. When I came home, I cried.

I also learned that Oats was lame again, literally three days before I was also supposed to be flying to visit family in Kelowna. WTF.

I collapsed, basically. I didn’t know what to do and it felt like my entire being, not just my brain, was collapsing inward on itself like a dying star.

My dear friend who is a total sweetheart came by and gave me some of her delicious toffee-bark and chocolates (she is the best!!) and she could tell that I was having a terrible time of it. I was.

So there I was, a few days before Christmas and my world imploded.

But did you die?

Not promising.

Oh lord, I am going to stop tempting fate. I have seen a few dear colleagues, friends and family get pretty seriously injured recently doing benign things (walking to the bus, stubbing a toe on a cabinet, tripping over a tree root while out on a run…) and I thought I could escape it, until it was MY TURN! 😦

I was kind of in a deep well of self-pity last week. Work was absolute nuts, we have been going through a pretty big upheaval (and I do not handle change well), my birthday while fun, also kind of sucked because Oats was lame…Just, everything, you know?

Getting cleaned up.

I should have known better.

I got too freaking cocky about my running, literally bragging to my friend about how I ‘never take rest days’…yeah, newsflash, bad idea…and I ended up with shin splints last week that really hurt, still do actually, but wait, there’s more!

I got my shin splints treated on Thursday, ok and then was running home along Dallas Rd, where there has been ongoing construction since I moved there (and I hate it. ugh) and I was keeping my eyes open for the construction, they had closed one road down and had a water truck parked on the side street, where I was running. And then…BOOM!

This one is one of the slower to heal. 

I went FLYING. Like a cartoon character. While I saw the construction and the water truck, I didn’t see the hose coming from the water truck (small, grey) going directly across the road, from where I was coming off the sidewalk to cross the side-street. I saw an elderly man trip, and for a split second I wondered what he had tripped on…And then I was a goner.

I hit the ground hard, hands outstretched. I think that’s what saved my teeth, nose and chin. I slid on a patch of gravel for about a foot, and then landed with my face on curb. I was just stunned….Shocked, I leapt up. A construction worker ran over to me and was asking if I was ok, and I angrily yelled that I was. I wasn’t though. I was shocked, and stunned and hurt.

I was in shock and I staggered up, and started walking home. I briefly stopped to consider the free book library that I wound up next to, but realized that my hands were bleeding onto the ground, and I was hurt. I fished my phone out of my bag and left a crying voicemail for Ian to pick me up (I SO didn’t want to creep home, looking insane, covered in dirt and blood…) and a kind lady was walking ahead of me heard me, turned around, saw me and took pity on me.

This one bled the most, and looked the worst. My shoulder is still not very good on this side. 

She escorted me to the seniors residence she was going to nearby, and I got washed up and called Ian again to pick me up. He got it this time and I luckily didn’t have to wait for too long.

I had a lot of scrapes, cuts and bruises, but it was kind of a miracle that nothing was broken, my nose, teeth and chin were all ok, fingers and wrists too. My shoulder still hurts quite a bit, and I don’t have great range of motion in it either. All my other cuts and bruises are healing. I had to take Friday off work because I was frankly in too much pain to be at work- I made it like 2 hours, and basically I got a tetanus shot, came home and cried for the rest of the afternoon. I had a lot of trouble with my hands- the open cuts made it very hard to grasp things. It was not a good day for me. I was in a very dark place.

But, things turn around. Saturday, I felt like 1 big headache. Everything hurt, ached terribly, BUT my scrapes were knitting together. It was just a big painkiller day for me, and I was walking gingerly. I really didn’t want anything to jostle my bad shoulder, and I needed Ian to help dry me off from the shower because the towel was sticking to my hand sores.

But by evening on Saturday, my sores already looked better. My friends were surprised I was healing so fast! So I am healing, and feeling better bit by bit, and I am back at work today. I still can’t use the gym (sore shoulder, and open sores still) as well as the ever-present shin splints, but I am hopeful that things should settle and improve even by tomorrow.

Hold on, hold on

So…After my exciting, energy draining weekend I was looking forward to settling down and working on some good stuff (like, not falling off jumping is a big one that I am apparently incapable of doing right now…).

And I had a great ride on Tuesday- no lesson, just cruising around in the field. Oats felt great, I was chill, everything was nice. I had some high hopes for my lesson on Wednesday, looking forward to it and feeling like generally, everything is pretty fine. I spent the day loving photos of Oats from the Derby and feeling pretty much on top of the world!

Except I wasn’t.

I came into my lesson not feeling angsty, or strange or stressed or anything…And then it became immediately clear that this was NOT my day, or Oats’. He started off spooky, looking at everything and ‘startling’ constantly. I don’t do well when he is like this- it sets me off in a really BIG way- and I started having trouble managing the situation. We warmed up okay nevertheless, and he kept startling and being spooky and looky. Sadly, this only got worse as we continued on…

It started pissing me off, more and more. We went to work over trot poles to eventually build a gymnastic (not something new in our world, pretty ho-hum) and Oats COULD NOT GET HIS SHIT TOGETHER. He trotted, fumbled, tripped, stumbled, fell and just fucked around, adding in some startles that literally set my teeth on edge.

I couldn’t manage. Like, I was riding and shouting ”I HATE this horse.” UGh.

Normally, when he’s like this, we can deal and get through it. But this time? Oh, no.

We slowly worked our way to a small x- rail to another x-rail, and Oats bizarrely managed to trip on the last pole, catch it hard between his hind hoofies, almost fall and sting himself so badly with this weirdness that he was limping?!!!!

I was ready to jump off- I was worried he’d really hurt himself! But Nicole convinced me to keep walking him out and eventually he worked out of it. He was just surprised. Still, wow, WTF is going on with me/my horse? I just was crying in disbelief.

So, back to the drawing board.

He trotted out okay, and then we went back to poles. Poles are ok. Then, the small x-rail…That was ok too. Then add in another x-rail, to a small vertical. The wheels immediately fell off again- Oats stumbled, tripped into the vertical, and my whole arm went through the reins. EFFFFF!!

I lost my shit. I yanked him up,  and burst into tears.

I was in the middle of probably the biggest horse-related meltdown I’ve had since…Oh, maybe a really bad dressage lesson last year, when I got off and cried?

Weird, so weird. I just couldn’t cope, or manage the situation with Oats at all. I wanted to yell, shout, scream, cry and just freak out. We ended up walking, walking, walking and breathing. Oats seemed not fazed at all, but wow, I was. In a big way.

Finally, when I was able to calm down and manage my emotions, we cantered over a few small x-rails, which were totally fine and rode great. He was still looky as hell, but it was ok.

SIGHHH

I cried a bit later, telling my friend about the ride. And then when I dismounted and was walking Oats through the gate, I went to latch it and he spooked so hard he almost fell into the gate. WTF? He is not a spooky horse…So yeah, not sure what was going on with him yesterday, but whatever it was, it sucked out loud.

We learn nothing.

Got this book back from my in-laws and it made me laugh. Oh Tim Kreider, you are the best!

So do we learn?

Hard to say. I emailed my equine wellness counselor in a big hissy fit last week. Coming off a really bad 7 days, a record-breaking bout of falling off, and another trainwreck of a jump lesson, I was spiraling and it was BAD BAD BAD.

Oats and his new obsession- Corona.

I took some time off from riding Oats (rode Fri and he was good! We worked on some dressage stuff, it was a very intense and thorough ride, but I felt like we got a lot of really solid work done), Sat-Sun I went  camping and Oats went on a trail ride with my friends without me, haha.

Monday I arranged the session. I was building already when we met, in a big huff, upset and convinced I was flying backwards with Oats. I could barely describe the problem without tears. It was rough.

Best buddies.

She laughed and assured me that this is a stage, and like any stage, coming to me at a point in time when I can handle it. I just need to work through it. I described my bad jumping efforts and she said a year ago, Oats made all the decisions. Now, you’re making a lot more of the decisions- you no longer have to convince him. Except, when you make the decisions for him, you can’t abandon him when you are unsure. It’s like jumping out of the car on the highway, and you leave the car suddenly driving itself.

Interesting!

So, there is still a fear/panic element when I approach a jump and I feel ‘blank’ about where the takeoff is. I’m like, what do I do? My legs come off, my mind ‘goes somewhere’ and boom! Oats slams on the brakes.

He needs me to ‘be there’ the whole way, not just when I’m 100% confident about the takeoff spot.

You get this through focus, and let me tell you: that laser-like intensity is EXHAUSTING. We worked on free-longing Oats in the round pen, getting him to come in and go out just through my watching/observing and directing him with my body language and look. It worked, too! Oats responded really nicely.

This lack of focus and ‘me leaving my body’ was a big issue last year. I stopped showing because of it–I couldn’t make myself go in the ring without disassociating. So, obviously this is not a new issue for me, but it’s one that I can come back to and begin to manage appropriately.

So we worked on the round pen to build my focus  (mine more so than Oats’) and then worked on an emotional freedom technique that made me laugh out loud. It works apparently, so I will start doing it once a day this week.

I then rode Oats outdoors and he was freaking out about the back corner (we have a bad history there, and it got cleaned up so GASP it looked different~) but you know what? It’s fine, we can manage. And we did. I eventually got him going around, and then we cantered over poles and then I got brave and jumped a jump! Whoop! He was great, super forward and interested the whole ride- a little spooky/jittery, but very forward.

So, yeah. Ups and downs. I am trying to keep calm and progress.