Revolt, escape, FREEDOM!..or..Reclamation of SANITY!

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Today I decisively reclaimed my sanity. I showed up at my stable at 7:30 am. Tacked up my horse. Jumped on her back and rode out of that hellhole, without a word to anyone. Sayonara bitches! I do not have a trailer, and did not have the time or want the hassle of arranging for one, so I grabbed a map and devised a route. We rode 4 miles through the city to my new barn destination, would have been 3.5 had we not gotten turned around. Some would say radical, but it was mostly just liberating. I’m sure it was a weird sight, a giant horse toting around a girl through streets and suburbs. But for me it was perfect, until, despite all of my planning, we got lost. At first it seemed a lot like a set-back, until we came upon a ravine I had never seen before, concealed as it were in a wash, below and between streets. Green at its floor and wide open ahead, it beckoned we lay foot to its soil and reconnoiter. It wasn’t a setback, it was a gift…and we accepted. There was gallop. Hooves bouncing rhythmically from grass, warm waves of air brushing against skin, blood rose to head and freedom to mind, sanity was once again firmly within our grasp.

 In my recent blog entry titled “Proximity over sanity” I had described the unfortunate circumstances of my horse’s lodgings. To sum it up, due to considerations of proximity I had subjected myself to continual indecency from the two “women” who own/run the stable. These two have over time proven themselves to be completely deranged, mostly rude, never helpful, seldom civil.

 For months I had walked on eggshells, tolerated being the subject of untrue gossip, endured castigating outbursts and unfounded suspicion. Boohoo, poor me. I know. Stay with me though. Riding had taken a backseat to escalating anxiety, to keeping a low profile, to worrying about the welfare of my equine child. I don’t mean to come of as a victim, but there is a frailty to my composition, which stems from being raised by good, decent, intelligent people. That’s the thing about a stable upbringing, it can be a hindrance in an unstable world. It precludes people like myself from developing the coping mechanisms necessary for fending off those people unlike myself. I should have thicker skin by this point, as my world-the horse world, is full of folks who would greatly benefit from a spell in a mental health sanitarium or, at least, a lithium prescription. But I don’t. I think in this way I’ll always be a bit of a delicate flower :P.

Being treated like dirt, it just doesn’t become me, and, on the few occasions in the past, I tried to fight fire with fire, mean with mean, insult with insult, but I felt so much unlike myself that it was not even worth it. The trouble is, somehow the ratio of crazy to sane is sorely disproportionate in the horse world. The greatest, most unifying flaws in horse people character are, in my opinion, lack of humility, perspective and restraint, in the worst-case scenario they are vicious too. In general, I’ve found also, that those, who lay claim to being paragons of kindness and compassion, tend to be the worst kind of snakes, most proficient at inflicting hurt. I am no saint, but I simply can’t attack people, not even in retaliation. I don’t want to wound them, to hurt them using their shortcomings or insecurities. I just don’t, I can’t. CAN ANYONE RELATE? This leaves me feeling defenseless and without any recourse, short of avoidance. But being a horse gal, I don’t have the luxury of avoiding horse folks. Sigh. Anyways, I digressed. I’ll have to expatiate on all the reasons for which I dislike human kind in a separate blog entry, eponymously titled Misanthropy Misunderstood. 😀

Thanks for reading.

28 thoughts on “Revolt, escape, FREEDOM!..or..Reclamation of SANITY!”

  1. Pingback: Proximity over Sanity? or The day I got yelled at and cried like a baby | misanthropy misunderstood

  3. I have a very similar experience. This may be long and I’ll leave some things out but there is a lot more to it as well….

    I kept my standardbred at a local race barn. While there, I purchased another awesome stb out of the kill pen. He had great manners, great attitude, and good conformation and the least important to me but apparently the most important to others…great bloodlines. Not even a day of owning I had one of the boarders, we’ll just call “Jane,” at the barn who raced telling me how great he was and even printed all his race history and even went as far as calling the previous owner on his registry papers to find out more info on him. Everyone kept telling me how “great” he would be if he went back into racing and offered to purchase him or at least half own him with me so we could race him. When I called the previous registered owner he was pretty annoyed that he was constantly getting called about this horse and about transferring his ownership over, which was weird because this was my first time calling him about the horse I owned… This went on for a couple days of constantly being bothered by it. “Jane” had come up to me and told me how she went into his stall to feel his legs and see how clean they were, all while I was not even there. I was beginning to fear for his safety and worried I was going to show up to the barn to him missing. Plans were being made to move them out as soon as possible. I started going to the barn later to avoid the race boarders and one night I decided to take my Mom and sister( who was a horse person). Well I had got done cleaning my boys’ stalls and “Jane” and her husband arrive in their truck and as I am walking in the stb they were so interested in she just starts feeling his legs and all over his body and telling things she notices to her husband. I just continue to walk him in his stall trying to avoid her and my sister hears he husband ask if “Jane” has asked me the question. Which no, I never heard so I can just imagine what she was going to ask. So that was pretty much the absolute final straw. I am protective over my horses and don’t appreciate people messing with them when I am not there. The next day I decided to bring my guys home until I found a place. We only had a decent sized pen in our back yard but enough for two horses for a couple days. So I saddled up the stb I had just gotten only two weeks before, first time I had a saddle on his back, second time actually riding him and then planned on ponying my other stb. My other stb wasn’t a fan of riding while other horses were being worked so without having a trailer on hand this was my only option. I let the barn owner know what I was doing, who had no part in the drama but didn’t tell anyone else. So I hoped on my one guy and ponied the other and had my dad follow us and off we went to my house 7 miles away. About halfway home the sky turned black and opened up and there was an absolute down pour. There was no way I could safely get the horses home. So I turned into the drive of the first Amish house I came up to and the guy instantly came out and pointed to the barn and graciously let my horses stay the night in his barn. Woke up early the next day and finished the adventure to my house without any problems and even found a place to keep them right down the road within a couple days.

    So, that’s my adventure story…. A lot more details to it but didn’t want to write a book here. I am glad to have come across someone with a similar story! I don’t regret the move at all and it was a huge relief to get both my boys out of there!

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Not at all! Every story is important! I’m actually surprised to find someone with a similar story! It’s not everyday you find someone who also felt they needed to “sneak” out of their barn for their safety or sanity.

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        1. You said it! I mean after i
          Expressly said that I was not ok w my horse being turned out if they wouldnt let her have water, apparwntly they believe horses dont NEED THE WATER THEY DRINK, especially in 100degree heat of arizona, i drove by to say goodnight to her, and there she was turned out over night without water. Its demented. I gave her water and she drank. It broke my heart!

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  4. “CAN ANYONE RELATE?” No, sorry, I can’t. I’m not a horse person. Well, I’m a person, I just don’t own a horse and rarely ride them. But the good news is that I learned a new word today. “Expatiating.” At first I was thinking you meant “expatriating,” meaning you were going to leave the country in which you are a citizen and go live in some other country. I thought that was a rather random thing to stick onto the end of your post. But then I put on my glasses and saw that the word was “expatiating.” And, not recognizing that word, I Googled it.

    I learned that it means either speaking or writing at length or wandering freely. I assume, in the context of your post, it means the former. And, since I’m not a horse person, I’m not sure that you speaking or writing at length about horse folk or their avoidance there of is something that would be of interest to me. Sure, I’ll give it a shot. And just like I did today by reading your post, I might learn a new word or two.

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    1. I dont know how to Take this? Are you threatening to disembark? Or trying to
      Guide me in the direction of more relatable content. I write about my experience in the world, not all posts can be of interest to you, as not
      All of yours are to me! usually though i think the content is engaging-ish. I hope! And yea sometimes i take vernacular liberties at the expense of reader comprehension, i sense you dislike the pretension therein, but again, it cant be helped. I like learning new words myself. “Reconnoiter” is the most recent addition to my arsenal!

      Horse people are just people with unique traits, its like a culture, dont you like reading about other cultures? If not then my Expatiations could also be described as being about conflict, human composition, variations in
      Perspective and limitations of brain.
      Bottom line, dont knock it till you try it, and quit making me nervous…and just have a dictionary handy.

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      1. “Are you threatening to disembark? Or trying to
        Guide me in the direction of more relatable content?” Neither, actually.

        It’s your blog and you should, by all means, write about your experience in the world, and if that has to do with horses, so be it. I’ll still read it, because you generally write very well. I’m sure your further expatiations on the this topic will be worthwhile.

        I really wasn’t, in my comment, trying to be mean, nasty, or critical. After all, I’m not a horse person. And I genuinely do like to learn new words. I don’t consider a strong vocabulary to be at all pretentious.

        So if my comment in any way made you nervous, I apologize. That was not my intention.

        Having said that, though, I can think of a glorious platitude to throw at you, knowing how much you appreciate them. “If the shoe fits, wear it.”

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        1. Well, then it’s sorted! Thank you for the compliment, although that “generally” is distracting hahaha. As for shoes, i wear them all quite well. The pretentious ones, the overwrought ones, pedantic and annoying ones, luckily they comprise only a small fraction of my wardrobe 😛

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    2. It might help if i noted that english is not my first language, although i like it best. So my speech patterns are not always conventional and neither is my word choice, as it is all a translation of an inner monologue conducted in a different tongue. Thou(me) sure doth protest too much though…see what you did.

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      1. Well, if English is, indeed, not your native language, you do a good job with it. Would you share what your native tongue is? Or is that way to personal? Anyway, I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive. My bad.

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        2. There is no “If” And I do a good job with it regardless. You have a knack for withholding always, just enough, huh? I wonder if it’s a subconscious man thing. That style of engaging people/women by handing them an amalgam of a compliment and an insult, so they are compelled to seek your approval. This is like the wordpress version of that, isnt it. Lol.

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  5. If you’re a good and decent person, it is easier to stand up for someone else than it is to stand up for yourself. You’ll think of others when it comes to defending yourself, even to the point of giving a break to someone who isn’t giving one to you… but if you’re defending someone else, especially someone who isn’t capable of defending himself, that’s a little easier.

    Also worth noting, defending yourself doesn’t have to mean fighting fire with fire. That’s a popular platitude (heh) but you know, sometimes water is the right thing for the fire. You can win the day without having to compromise yourself in the process.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’ll take half good & half decent. Lol You’re right, I am more than effective when defending others, i never hesitate or hold back. Interesting observation. I feel like “fire w fire” is an expression not a platitude, as it is not imbued with any moral meaning. There is no water available in my scenarios.

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Thoughts?