Daily Archives: February 6, 2014

I’m an equestrian, so on freezing cold days, I go riding. Here are some pics of me riding  Brodi, a little Appaloosa pony. Isn’t he adorable? I made a little painting of him too. I was jumping little jumps, coz it was my first time riding him.

Jumping the little blue and yellow diagonal, a bit bigger than it is.

He has such cute movement and a jump! I love him.

Hi! I’m an adorable pony, take my picture please!

I’m trotting, and snorting smoke!  Grrr, fire pony!

A good shot of us cantering. Look at his mane flying.

Warming up over a teeny jump, he wouldn’t even jump it, just step over it.

He’s sooo damn cute. I love him. I want to take him home.

I love riding. It’s so refreshing and calming. Being around the horses and other animals (in this case, my instructors big puppy, Lucy, who kept chasing poor Brodi) in the barn. Even if it is cold, we have fun!

Here’s my drawing of Brodie and I.

Watercolour. I never said I was an artist.

I went riding Tuesday, before the big storm. Had a blast!

I used to volunteer for an equine therapy program. I  had so much fun. I’ve been riding since I was 11. Expect more riding pics. I love it. And I didn’t “pull a Sandra”. (Fall off stupidly, something I’ve been doing lately LOL. First time, my horse cut a corner and I tumbled off, “flying canter dimount”, rolled, got up and chased him down, second time, my horse spooked, did a 180, and I literally did a dismount, and landed on my feet!)

I ride at Knapman Equestrian Centre in Fenwick with Nadine. She’s fantastic.

Here’s Lucy, the dog, 4 month old lab/Australian Shepard mix. HOW CUTE. But so rambunctious.

Lookit that face!

I know this is going to sound weird, but I’m feeling a little ‘off’ and for some reason I want to state for the record that I have never been insane. I’ve been off my rocker and ridden the crazy train, yes, but I’ve never completely lost it.

I’ve seen other people in that state, wondered what it might be like, and come close to falling down the rabbit-hole myself, but something has always reached out to catch me just as the ground started to give way under my feet. What that something—or someone—is, I don’t know for certain, but I think it’s more than a coincidence that I’ve been rescued every single time.

And yet……standing on the edge of insanity and gazing into its depths has some strange attraction. Especially when one feels as unsettled as I have these past few days. Although life is going along pretty well for mid-winter, I can’t shake the thought that something is changing again, and I don’t like it one bit.

So true to form, my brain responded to the stimulus like “OK, I can’t deal with this complex stuff” and basically shit the bed. I’ve spent most of the past three days trying to focus on webinar trainings, and feel like the only thing I learned was how to stifle yawns at the same time that I was tapping my feet incessantly under the desk. It’s not a coincidence that I also haven’t slept well in several nights, and this vague uneasiness has more to do with that than the cats, whose behavior has improved but who, like me, have continued to be restless and agitated.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             continued

I don’t know if this is an incipient mood swing or merely a sense of the ground shifting under my feet again, but either way, it’s not good. And I’m feeling that all-too-familiar pull toward the edge of the abyss, which both frightens and exhilarates me at the same time. Love and fear are felt too keenly, anger and anxiety are too raw; and yet I’m oddly comforted by the knowledge that all will be well in the long run because I’ve been here before.

I’ve looked into that indescribable darkness. I know what lies at the bottom of it. It calls to me like a Siren’s song, inviting me to allow the warm, sweet madness to wash over me. But I can’t…..there’s still a life out there with my name on it, a normal life that needs me to live it, and not to put too fine a point on things, but I don’t have time for this crap.

So I’m going to go against my old self-destructive instincts and do exactly as I have been instructed: take Vitamin Z for a couple of nights, stick to my schedule, and call Dr. Awesomesauce if the normal doesn’t return pronto. I don’t WANT to take the Zyprexa. I don’t want to admit that I need it. And I sure as hell don’t want to concede the fact that after two spectacularly uneventful months of blissful stability, I feel like I’m straying off-course……and I have no idea why.

But I also don’t want to let things spiral out of control when I’ve actually done a good job of recognizing the problem before that happens. I have to remind myself that I used to not have this ability, and give myself a little credit for the fact that I’m being proactive. No falling down that rabbit-hole for me….but sometimes, I can’t help being a bit tempted to go exploring.