Within the sadness

Daily Oats: Food for the horse lovers soul

Just in case you are wondering, I do read all of y0ur emails and all of your post on my Facebook  page.   At the moment, in these hard times, the messages can be extremely difficult.  So many of you are struggling in one way or another.

I want to as gently as I can and remind you that your life is a choice.   We can choose to remain with the sadness of our problems or focus on a solution.   I know from personal experience that it is far easier to remain in that comfort zone that  grips us  and keeps us bound within that very sadness for years  or even a lifetime if we let it consume us.

Back in the 1960’s, don’t laugh at how old I am,  is when I got my first horse.  I had begged and pleaded for a horse to ride every day.  I would ride anything that even somewhat resembled a  horse, including the railing on the front porch of  our house.  I would watch  My friend Flicka every Saturday morning and Bonanza on every Sunday evenings. It is the only present that I every ask for on my birthday and Christmas.

We were extremely poor so buying a horse was not very high on the priority list,  but the neighbor, Sherman Peterson, had horses.   Sherman  saw how much I loved them.  I would go to visit his horses every chance I got. Sometimes, he would even take me for a ride.  It was Sherman, that brought to our house one Easter Sunday afternoon a  rich dark bay  Welsh pony that we named Ginger.

She was a beauty. Long and lean with a large white blaze and two white hind stockings.  Her body was a deep rich reddish brown with lots on Black highlights.  To me, she was the prettiest horse on the face of the earth.  She was the sweetest thing

Although he brought her for the family, I considered her mine.  I rode her everywhere.  I never even owned a saddle, just jumped  on and went for a ride.   Nothing else mattered, just another day that brought me the chance  to be with her and ride.  To  explore the world from the back of a horse was all I ever dreamed about.

Within a few years,  my sister bought herself a mare called Chesty.  We rode all over the entire  neighborhood, sometimes for the entire day.   Our fencing was not the greatest, and one night the horses got  lose and made their way to the highway.

It was early in the morning when everyone was still in bed when I heard the phone ring and my dad answered it.   I heard him ask which one got hit.  I through on some clothes and started running down the mile long dirt road towards the highway.

I can still to this day feel the terror that was running through my mind,  my heart beating so fast that I could hardly breath and  I can still feel the coldness of the tears running down my face.   My dad passed me in the truck as he continued toward the highway, yelling at me to go home.   I continued for the highway,  I  was early winter and it was extremely cold outside.

I froze in my tracks,  my knees buckled  and I fell to the ground as I heard the fire from a rifle.  It was  just one shot but a shot that I can still hear to this day.

Like so many other, I do not deal with death very well, but it was not until after the death of my husband, that I learned not to stay in the sadness.  He died at the age of 42 from cancer.  At the time,  it was my choice to just retreat and stay in my own world.  A world  that continued to grow smaller and smaller, until it almost consumed me.

I have learned  now that it truly  was my choice.  In my self-consuming state of mind, I saw no way out and the sadness that consumes many of us, captured my heart and denied me access to the love of those around me.  It was not them, it was me.

No matter, what kind of  lose you have  at this moment, a family member, a financial lose, or ever the lose of your beloved horse,  I just want to remind you that it is our own choice on how long  you stay in the grips and belief that others do not understand or care what we are going through.

For me, I had to just get up. I had to re-start my life and comes to terms with  his  my husband’s death.

It is hard to see so many, posting and emailing me that  their horses are the only thing in their  life that keeps them  going.  At some point, like me you will find out that not only is that not enough, it is not true.

I just would not let anyone else in anymore.  It was fear that kept me bound within that overwhelming sadness.  It was my choice,  just like now, it is yours.  Choose to continue to open your heart and see the beauty around you once more.

It was far easier to not let anyone else in my life, then facing the possibility  that I might open my heart again and lose someone else, but that is not living.

It is not grabbing this life by the horns and hanging on for the ride.

It is not getting up, dusting yourself off and  jumping  back in the saddle, heading down the road just to see what the hell is around the next corner, the next road, the next trail.   It is certainly not riding the saddle of life.

It is not being all that you are ever  capable of being.  Is that not what you have been looking for your whole life?  Is that not what you ask yourself every time you look in the mirror?   Why am I here?  Who am I?

Just for today,  even if that is all that you have left within you, choose to live life for all that it is worth.  We are all stronger than what we believe. Dust yourself off, and go do one thing on your  bucket list  (What I want to do before I die).   It is Cowboy and Cowgirl-up time with out any  more Bull shit!

During this holiday time, find someone who needs you and share part of your life, your story, your horse,  but most of all, remember it is OK to share your heart.   Not only with your horse, but with the world around you.

Remember, just be the whinny,  they always have their heart open for us.

Daily Oats: Food for the Horse lover’s soul

Roberta Edstrom

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