When is it really over…?
Just when I think I’m ready to give it all up and move on, something happens and the tiny little flame turns back into a roaring bonfire again.
I have tried to get this farm going for the longest time. Every time I think I’m there, it comes crashing down around me again. People are always telling me I need to move on and “get a real job”, a “real career”, go back to school and “be realistic” about what I am going to do, and (my favorite) “stop dreaming”.
Until recently, I did fairly well at ignoring everyone who told me all of those things. Granted, there were times I almost gave in, but I never did. I held onto the fragments of my shattered dream with all of the stubborn strength I have in me. Then the divorce came. It left me devastated, feeling unloved, unworthy, unable to accomplish anything. Basically it left me feeling like a failure, and like someone who would never reach any dream. People in my life saw (most likely subconsciously) that I was weak in my resolve and easily persuaded, and they pounced. They convinced me that I would never succeed in achieving a self-sustaining farm. They slowly pried my fingers away from their death-grip on my shattered dream and tossed it in the dumpster like a parent does with a child’s favorite toy that has been broken.
I felt broken and lost, without a purpose. Initially I blamed it on the divorce, and grieving over the loss of my marriage. Farm supply catalogs would come in the mail and instead of losing myself in them for hours, dreaming of the day I could justify buying the ivermectin in bulk, or dropping several bills on a stable blanket with my farm’s monogrammed logo, I would just toss them in the trash without so much as opening them. Two or three weeks ago my Quarter Horse Journal came in the mail, and as I was in a hurry, I just tossed it in the back seat of my car to throw away later. I had completely forgotten about it until today as I was grabbing my journal out of the car, I managed to get the QHJ wedged between the pages. I didn’t notice I had done that until I was inside Caribou. It shocked me when I saw it because I realized I hadn’t even looked at the cover photo in that entire three weeks. Noticing a teaser on the front about a writeup concerning one of my horse’s grandsires, I flipped it open. The flame I thought I had snuffed out grew steadily as I read, and I realized that I had that peaceful feeling I had been missing for these past months- that kind of inner warmth that just let’s you know where you are or what you’re doing is exactly where you should be.
I continued reading, and as I skimmed the training section, I noticed myself making mental notes about possible approaches to an issue I was having troubles with my mare. After I had read the magazine from cover to cover, I closed it, shut my eyes, and sat in silence for several minutes. I wrestled with a lot of stuff as questions and various problems arose in my mind. For the first time ever, I thought about what I wanted and where I wanted to be and actually listened to the concerns people have shared with me over my chosen profession. In the end it all came down to the following:
#1- Horses make me happy. More than just “yay- isn’t that fun?” happy, no they bring a peace to my life. It’s almost like when I’m working with horses, I feel closer to God.
#2- If I don’t have dreams, I don’t have a reason to get up in the morning.
#3- I can’t do this alone. What I’ve really been missing all of this time, the final piece of the puzzle that I need to actually succeed is support. I need a partner. I need someone to do it with me.
#4- What I need to do right now is focus on getting a “real” job (one that has a regular paycheck) for now. I need to keep my one horse so I don’t lose faith.
#5- I need to back-off on trying to get the whole farm-thing going for a while. I need to also realize that I may never find someone to do it with. In which case, I need to be content with horses as a small time hobby. Which is OK. I never gave myself that option before. Small time hobby is OK.
This is going to take a lot of patience on both mine and God’s part. I’ve just gotta have faith!
Leave a Reply