Sometimes, I miss you with my whole being. And it's scary, scary scary scary because in those moments, these moments, I can't really remember what life feels like other than grief and pain and loss. I forget the good because without you all I can remember is the bad, and in those moments I want to cease because nothing is better than the agony of missing you so very dearly.

I don't know how to fix these moments. They're fewer and far between- something that, in of itself, shreds my heart even further. I don't know how to fix.. me. I'm kind of broken without you, like that glass statue with a faint crack that shatters under pressure. I'm just a little cracked, usually, but nights like this I'm scattered into pieces on the floor and there's nothing there to help me rebuild myself.

We were supposed to have so much more time. Years, decades even. And all of that is just unhappy prayer now, the empty prayers of someone who knows that no one is listening, but is desperate enough to ask anyways. I can't do this without you, and yet the cruelness of it all demands that I must.

I must. And I will, because there's no other option. But right now I'm lost in missing you.

Goodbye.

May 16th was the last day I saw her. She was to go down before me; I had finals, after all, and it would be much too stressful to deal with those and shipping her down at the same time. She was to go down, and be tried for lease by some younger girls. We would reunite in a few weeks.

May 16th was the last day I saw her.

June 3rd is painfully etched into my memory, one of those horrifying days that no matter how much time passes will always be unerringly vivid. I was getting spotty updates from my sister about her- they thought her coffin joint might be infected from the injection she got earlier that week, and she was at some equine clinic where they were monitoring her. It would be okay. The night before, restless and worried, I had wandered around campus a listless ghost, incapable of fretting in my dorm. I would up in a shrouded enclave with some statue dedicated to someone who was probably importance, once. I lay in the grass, in pajamas and a tee, trying to lose myself in the numbness that seeped through me from the dewy grass. It'll be okay, no matter what, I told myself. Worst case scenario- it is infected, but we catch it and treat it. Worst case scenario, she's a pasture ornament for life- a wonderful, cookie gobbling pasture ornament. That was my worst case scenario. Sometimes I look back and laugh, laugh that sort of hollow, disbelieving laugh. Worst case scenario.

I was fraught with worry that day, waiting for a call from my sister with updates. Rush was in surgery; they were scoping the joint to determine for sure whether it was an infection or some other cause. She'd call me when she was out. It was dead week- plenty to do, so I kept busy to distract myself. I went to class, my phone on vibrate at my finger tips. Nothing. I went to another class, and another, and still nothing. My sister had told me earlier about all the forms she had to sign- financial and liability forms, one about anesthesia. Worry itched at my mind. I spent my IS class googling her surgery, googling anesthesia, googling worst case scenarios.

There was an extra credit lecture an hour or so after class, so I went to that to distract myself. I clutched my phone in my hand while I scribbled down notes about recent upheavals in Nepal's political order. A friend sat next to me, there because he had nothing else to do, and hey, it's extra credit! An hour in to the lecture people trickle out, but the professor drones on. I glanced at my phone, and panic when I see two missed calls and a voicemail. I shoved papers in my bag frantically and stood up to leave; my friend noticed and stood with me. We left together, me desperately clawing at my phone trying to make it play the voicemail. He chatters inanely.

I listen to the voicemail, but I don't quite understand it- it's the veterinarian, and he's babbling on about something, apologizing about something, but I don't quite understand. What was he saying? I didn't understand. Confused, I wander dazedly towards my dorm room. I call my sister, and she's crying I'm crying and suddenly I'm falling to the ground and gasping for breath and I understand, I understand, she's gone, and I don't want to understand.

She tells me to call the vet and I do. He's so nice, so apologetic, and I just want to scream at him because she's gone, she's gone, and I trusted him and she's gone, but he's so nice and apologetic. So instead I listen as he explains what happens, how he explains that it was a statistical impossibility, she was that one in ten thousand, and I alternate between crying my guts out to a stranger and sniffling as I try to listen to his sympathies.

Somehow I stumble to my dorm, still talking to the vet, still trying to comprehend it, and I do and I don't and it's all one big mistake because there's no way she's gone, but he keeps saying it and I don't know what to do. And then the call ends and I'm falling to the bed, face in my hands, and my roommate comes over with tissues and then leaves the room. And I don't know what to do. What do I do? She's gone and there's nothing to do without her, I'm nothing without her.

I cry a lot. I stare at the wall a lot. I call my sister, and we cry together, and I crawl into my closet where I have one of her blankets and I wrap myself in it, inhaling that disgusting dirty manure because it smells like her and nothing will ever smell like her again. I'm broken, shattered, all at once destroyed in a way I never knew possible. I scream, silently, occasionally. It doesn't feel real, sometimes; I wasn't there, therefore it didn't happen. I'm in denial, rationalizing, trying to find a way out- I realize that, sometimes, but I'm in denial about that realization too and I don't know what to do, what do I do?

I sit in my room, at my computer, in silence for an hour. I put a post on facebook so that people will leave me alone. And then I sit, staring. My brain shuts off and I don't think, about her, about anything- I'm numb, empty, void of life. Because if I think I remember, and I don't want to remember. I don't want to think. I don't want to exist, not without her. And she doesn't exist anymore, does she. Not anymore. But I can't sit in there forever, and I promised my sister I would keep busy to keep distracted, so I blot my eyes and wipe my nose and trundle myself off to a review session for a final. My eyes leak as I walk, but I find that I no longer hold value in the opinion of the world around me. Everything has become terribly insignificant in the face of losing the only thing of significance.

I walk into the room, steely-willed but watery-eyed, and tell myself not to think. Don't think, don't remember, and it won't be true. I sit down, and my friends whisper concerns, but I find that I've lost the capacity of speaking without falling apart and it takes me a bit before I can give a curt "I don't want to talk about it." I sit in the session, writing down insights and sniffling and wiping away tears and all the while I'm staring straight ahead, because if I acknowledge anyone my carefully constructed illusion of fantasy will crumble and I'll have to accept reality.

The session's over, and I don't want to talk to anyone, so I leave quickly before anyone can try to talk to me. My feet are taking me towards the door, towards the exit, towards my dorm, and my mind is wandering already and my mind is crumbling and I'm on the verge of that silent screaming when Will appears from behind me. And he asks me whats wrong, and he's so wonderful and dear and completely oblivious and I don't want to talk about it, but it's Will, so words and sobs come spewing out of my mouth and I tell him everything, I tell him she's gone, and I'm forced to acknowledge it for myself and I'm crying some more, but he doesn't care because he's wonderful Will.

He doesn't say much except some few expletives, and some words of encouragement, and some reassurance that I won't fail my finals. And he deposits me at my dorm and I'm alone again and suddenly I find I don't want to be alone, alone with my thoughts, because I'm not so good at pretending any more. So I have another good cry and bout of denial and then I'm trundling myself off to the Research Commons, distracting myself with graphs of elasticity of demand and the imposition of tariffs and I'm leaky eyed but distracted, a bit. And then it's 2 am and I'm kicked out, wandering, because it's 2 am and I don't want to be alone with my thoughts, those terrible terrible thoughts of her laying there, dead, because she's not she's not she's not and if I don't think about it it's not true. But I have nowhere else to go, even if I'm afraid to fall asleep, so I walk back to my dorm.

And there's Danish, and I'm panicking, but he's seen me and it's too late to run. And he's hugging me and talking about he's sorry but I don't want to talk about it, not with him, so I'm silent and we walk up the stairs in silence. And then we're in the hallway and he hugs me one last time, and I break the silence and blurt out something about how I don't want to sleep, but that was stupid, stupid, because now he's telling me to come to his room. I don't have the presence of mind to say no, so I find myself in his room minutes later and we're watching Psych because he's trying to cheer me up, but who can think about cheering up at a time like this? Why would I want to cheer up? It feels like a betrayal, so I sit in silence and numbness and stare at the screen, unseeing. And he's trying to talk to me about her, trying to get me to open up or cry or do something, anything, but he's no wonderful Will and I find myself resenting him for his efforts, because he just makes everything worse.

Eventually I slip off the bed, put my shoes on, and leave. It's late, or early, or whatever, and I'm still scared to sleep but I'm exhausted and have a terrible headache from crying, and I end up drifting off to sleep for a few hours.

When I wake up, I'm uncomprehending for a moment; then it comes rushing back and I'm sobbing into my pillow, and I don't normally dream but I did tonight, vividly, and she was dead even in my dream. The next few days go on much the same- I avoid talking to anyone, I go to class, I cry in my room. I don't want to be one of those people who punishes themselves, but I can't bring myself to eat, so I don't. I avoid sleep like the plague- I learned my lesson that first night. The next night I couldn't bear it and went for a run at 1am, sprinting down the trail trying to leave my demons behind. I find I can't cry and sprint at the same time, so I alternate both, and I run until I can't and then I turn around and run so more. There's a cat in the parking lot I'm racing by, and I stop dead and collapse in the gravel, breathing in salty tears and gasping and staring at this cat. I sit there, trying to make friends with this cat, but it's feral and skittish and runs off after an indiscriminate period of time. I sit there until I feel the sting of the gravel cutting into my skin, then I drag myself to the grass and sit there.

But my thoughts catch up to me and I'm running again, running from her memory because right now all it holds is untolerable pain, and I'm running past the school in the other direction until I can't run anymore and I'm stumbling, jogging, and I find a grassy lawn to sit in. I hide in the shadow of a bush, and a sprinkler nearby keeps passing over me and raining down freezing water, but it's welcome somehow and sparks something in me and I sit there reveling in the numbness and somewhere deep down I know I'm punishing myself again but I don't care, so I sit there until I'm soaked through and then I'm stumble-running down back to the school. As I near the dorms I spot two people, a couple, wandering in the same direction, and they see me and I freeze for a moment before darting off like a skittish deer. I wander towards the quad and find more sprinklers, so many more sprinkers, and I create this numbing march through them and then sit in the line of spray, numbing myself again. It's the closest to peace I can get.

At some point I rouse myself, wander back to my dorm, and stand in a cold shower with my clothes on until I'm chattering and shivering, and then I go and sit on the balcony, drenched through, to find that peace in numbness once more.

I thought this post was going to be a reflection upon losing her, but I still don't know if I can put that into words yet. So instead, this is my account of losing her. It was supposed to be a reflection, a step towards letting go, but I guess I'm not ready for that yet. Maybe next year.

Mayhem and Ensuing Trauma

So we left off having a totally awesomesauce ride. Friday, not so much. I was originally going to warm up on the flat and then set up a jump course, so that I had more maneuverability while flatting, but she was a ball of fire and blowing through everything so I decided to just work over fences. For some reason, she really settles down over fences- I think it just engages her mind more and it something she truly enjoys, so she settles down to working instead of fighting with me.

I just put a cavaletti on each long diagonal and did figure eights over them, first at the trot and then at the canter. She was definitely bracing to them and taking off long instead of waiting for me, but we worked through it and she settled down to loping over them with me. I was happy enough with that, so I called it quits and got off.

And then.. ugh. I unsaddled her in the ring, to give her a little turnout, and then took the bridle off. She tried to take off while I was slipping the bridle over her head and caught the bit in her mouth, flinging herself backwards and dragging me a few feet before she dropped it and bolted off. Obviously this was not acceptable behavior, so I waited until she stopped running about then caught her in order to do more on-off of the bridle until she stood still and waited. Unfortunately, she had other ideas.

I looped the reins around her neck and was bringing the bit up to her mouth when she decided not to play ball and bolted off, dragging me with her. I was holding the bridle, and the reins were around her neck- I had a brief moment of debate in my mind whether to try and keep holding on or not, and decided to drop the bridle with the hope that she would stop once there wasn't resistance. No such luck. She took off around the ring, tangling the bridle up in her back legs, and quite frankly scaring us both to death. I really, truly thought she was going to break a leg.

Instead, she stopped in a corner and let me unbuckle the reins and untangle the rest of the bridle from her legs. And then she just stood there for a bit, every muscle tense and trembling. So obviously we were a little traumatized from that. I got a halter and walked her around a bit; she had no swelling or abrasions and walked off sound so I thanked my lucky stars, cold hosed each leg for several minutes, and then had to run off to my bus.

Making It All Worth It

Working with Rush is a lot like driving down a street with ridiculously long street lights. You can be rushing along, making mad progress, and then the brakes are engaged and you wait. And wait. And wait. And just when you've just about torn your hair out from the frustration
of waiting and making no progress, the light changes.

That's what it's been like since I started riding her. We'd get stuck on an issue, make no progress for a while, send me into spirals of frustration and despair, and then one day something would change (maybe she felt sorry for me) and we would catapult past the problem, making rapid progress in a relatively short frame of time. It's frustrating as hell, because nobody likes to plateau, especially when there is so much to learn.

But rides like the one I had last week are what makes it all worth it. Ever since the impending decision that Rush will get leased out this summer (more on that later) at a hunter/jumper barn, I decided it was time to get back into jumping bootcamp. Originally, when I had moved to the dressage barn I'm at, I had ambitiously decided to jump once or twice a week.. however, the size of a dressage ring being shared between three people is not exactly conducive to setting up jumps, and there's almost always someone riding when I am at the barn, so I opted for just doing flatwork instead of cramming jumps into an already crowded ring. Plus I only had two standards and a couple really odd large plastic poles, which Rush hits pretty consistently and are lightweight enough to be knocked down, so I was having to get off after every jump to reset it. Not worth it.

Last week, however, I scrounged up four cavalettis that had been hiding out behind some trailers and dragged them over to the ring (WHY ARE THEY SO HEAVY??). I set up a two stride line, a single on the other long side of the ring, and the last one when down a long diagonal. I honestly don't really know what I was expecting- we haven't schooled courses since before she went lame last year, let alone any two strides, so this was one of my "we'll try it out, see how it goes, and adjust from there" moments. And I'm glad I did, because BOY was she perfect!

I is a goobers

I might have to attribute some of her lightness and responsiveness to the transition work we had done in the previous ride, but she was listening and relaxed and not running to jumps, and it was simply a stellar ride. We warmed up on the flat briefly- she even offered a change (but then got a little excited afterwards), then hopped over the single both ways to warm up my eye. I trotted the course first (down single, up two stride, down diagonal, up single) and she was perfect- waiting, coming back from the canter when I asked her to, keeping a consistent pace- and I cantered the course twice after, both of which went quite smoothly. She changed her lead over the diagonal fence every time (that's my girl!) and came back quickly to a trot if I needed her to change in a corner. The only spot of trouble we had was in the two stride, as I had forgotten to shorten it for her stride. She kind of bullied through it each time, running because she didn't know if she could make it otherwise, but came back after the second fence every time so I didn't push it during the course.

After we finished the course work I took her through the two stride a few more times each way until I had convinced her that it was possible to get through it without running willy nilly. She just really doesn't trust her stride to get her up to things, so she gets fast instead of opening up and lengthening. I tried to correct this by giving her a really quality, forward canter up to the first jump, then half halting upon the landing (as an attempt to catch her before she started running) and giving a conservative release over the second fence in order to hold her together more. It seemed to work, as after a few times through she got the hang of it and was cruising through.

Then everything went to hell in a handbasket Friday, but more on that later.

Counter Canter

I was a bad mom this past week and didn’t go out very much, so she pretty much sat around and did nothing but a light hack this week. That made for a horse with lots of energy. We worked for maybe 30 minutes on just blowing through that energy- lots of trotting circles, figure eights, etc, with me staying out of her way as long as she didn’t get too out of control. There was another horse in the ring who was trotting/cantering around us, and she had a few OH MY GOD ITS COMING FOR ME moments, but held herself together really well and never actually took off, which is a major improvement for us. We did lots of trot-halt, walk-halt, trot-walk transitions in the center of the ring after our warm-up when we were waiting for the other horse to leave so we could get to the good stuff, cantering!

And good stuff it was. I started out loping her around each direction on a loopy rein, letting her relax into it and get her longer strided, active canter rather than her short choppy EHMERGERD WE’RE CANTERING canter which is a big no no. It took a while for her to relax into it going to the left, but we got there, and all was good. Then.. the dreaded counter canter. We’ve never practiced this before. It’s 100% new material to us. And she DID NOT GET IT.

And she was very adamant about letting me know that she did not get it. First we started with, y’know, trying to get the counter canter. And she gave me a big FU, said NO YOU’RE WRONG, and picked up the correct lead every time. So we sat in a corner for a bit as I attempted to make her flex her neck to each side, which she also did not like, and then we tried again. I ended up having to take her off the track, bend her to the outside, then pick up the canter and move diagonally back to the track.

Then came the harder part.. keeping the counter canter. Once she understood that yes, I really did want the “wrong” lead, she picked it up for me every time. But that doesn’t mean she kept it. Whaddya know, we have really smooth flying changes! But they only happen whenever she thinks they should.. oh Rush. At first every time we approached a corner she swapped. Then it was between the first and second corners. I really had to wrap her around my outside leg, using it to direct the motion of her body around the turns, while keeping my inside leg back to support her bend. It was hard work for the both of us, and it was definitely not pretty. But we managed to get through the short side going each way, which is not an easy feat considering it’s an itty bitty indoor with short sides!

It feels crazy good to be able to get that amount of effort out of her. She was frustrated as hell and thought I was insane and doing everything wrong, but she worked with me and we made really good progress in just one ride. It’s the rides like these- when we learn something new together- that makes me appreciate her so much. She’s really come far since I met her.

Winding Down February

February was a big month for us! We made really big progress in remaining relaxed and steady in a frame, mainly thanks to moving to a new facility. These are the goals I laid out for us at the beginning of February:

Ride without stirrups at least 2x a week
5 min of balancing trot + canter per ride
Begin teaching flying changes
Pole courses + low fences (while at SRS)

All in all I think we did pretty well with these! Some got kind of modified as our needs changed- for example, balancing, but the overall purpose for them was achieved.

Ride without stirrups at least 2x a week: This one is (unfortunately) the one that I think I stuck to the most. While at SRS it was more of doing several minutes of posting without stirrups, then once we moved to our new placce it was more like, oh look, my leg has improved x1000 on flat but not over fences so maybe idk, I should just take my stirrups off my saddle! So I did that and killed myself for a few days in a row and then took a breather and then killed myself some more and fun times were had by all.

5 min of balancing trot + canter per ride: This one was less adhered to, simply because it wasn't really necessary after the initial two weeks at SRS that I balanced a bunch. Those weeks were enough to get rid of my icky perching problem and remind my position that I was perfectly capable of stretching down into my legs and balancing myself.

Begin teaching flying changes: Well.. we made some progress here. Things I know: she can get flying changes. Things I don't know: how to make her get them consistently. We'll figure it out, I just need to discover which cues and approaches work for her and which don't.

Pole courses + low fences (while at SRS): This is the one that probably failed most in practice but worked best in theory. The point of working on this was to redevelop my eye and get me better at finding and supporting unusual spots. I didn't do much in the way of pole courses but I have been jumping consistently and my eye has gotten a lot better, to the point where I no longer see absolutely nothing.

Day o' Sun

Friday was a b e a utiful day that had sunshine up the wazoo and it was amazing! The Rushers had her blanket off for turnout for the first time in a millenium, which I'm sure she appreciated. She also got a scrub down on her neck and shoulders trying to eradicate that persistent bugger I like to call Steve. Okay it's really rain rot, I just decided to name it Steve right now. Not sure why. Then she got to graze out in the nice open grass field while I waited for her to dry, which really only took a few minutes because only her clipped hair was wet, but I stretched it out because the sun felt heavenly and she was being really adorable snuffling around in the grass.

Friday also marks the day we upped the jumps to 3', and she rose to the challenge amazingly! I trust this horse with my life, she has never shown even the slightest inclination of refusing a jump- bowling straight through it, maybe, destroying it, definitely an option, but refusing? Not a chance. Her worst habit is wiggling on the approach and diving one way or another directly afterwards, which I need to be more vigilant about, but luckily that's a problem easily fixed and one I will gladly take over what we had a few weeks ago, which was trying to buck me off every time we cantered.

Saturday we went back to flat work and focused on our flying changes, which I think really started to click into place by the end of the ride. She has wonderful simple changes- point her down a diagonal at the canter, ask her to trot in the middle, and she'll pop right up into the opposite lead no questions asked (even if you don't want her to which happens frequently.. but that's a whole 'nother can of worms). Flying changes have been more difficult to implement, as she's been really sticky with her hind end through them. This has mostly been my fault, because I've been so focused on changing the bend that I've forgotten the most important element of a change- being collected. Once I was reminded that hey, maybe sitting her on her butt will make it easier for her to get a clean change, things started clicking into place and she put in a good three or four consistently at the end of the ride. I'm hoping the next week will really build on that and soon we'll have automatic ones!