Wednesday, April 15

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Sunshine. A bit of melting going on.

A good riding lesson. We continued to work on the walk/canter transitions, and River did a lot better today at not getting too excited, and was even picking up the transition on his left, which he has a lot of trouble with (everything is harder for him on the left).

The barn owner is thinking she might have to close the barn. This would be kind of the last bit of relief and normalcy gone if it happens. I suppose I would survive, but riding has been kind of my sanity preservation. She's checking to see what the regulations are regarding the barn, if it's possible to stay open, etc., but she's afraid of getting a fine if she's in violation.

Nice to have my sweetie home, even if he doesn't get home until 7 pm and goes to bed at 9 pm.

Talking with my Mom on the phone. We don't always talk about anything important, but every call with her is precious to me. We don't always get along, it isn't always pleasant, but I'm glad we can do this.

Feelings today:

Ongoing struggles with the loss of normalcy and all of the things I had cobbled together to be my life. The likely event of the barn closing will leave a real gap in my world, now that it is pretty much the only thing I leave the house for. I have not gone anywhere but the riding barn for over two weeks now. It keeps me physically active, and gives me head space. I'm not sure if I would bring River home, or if I would just continue to board him there so that the owner doesn't go out of business completely. The boarding could go on, just not the riding in the arena or lessons.

Mom seems to be having some trouble with short term memory. I've noticed that she tells me the same news several calls in a row, and today she wasn't clear about what I said about my sweetie; where he is now working and that this job site is close enough that he can drive from home each day, and today we had the tenth in depth discussion of what kind of septic system we have, because each time I mention it she asks for a full explanation, even though we've gone through it many times. I am saddened by this, but it isn't catastrophic because she is 90 now, and there's lots of people looking out for her.

Really feeling sad about having to be aware of distancing ALL THE TIME. There were a few other people around at the barn, but you can't have a normal conversation with them. Everyone is being careful to stay away. One woman who I like very much was there feeding her horse, and was not allowed in the barn because of trying to keep anyone out who was not actively having a lesson. We talked outside, standing quite a distance apart, and it was so sad to me that the social life of the barn is gone for now.

I feel so frustrated that I can't do anything to change this. We could have weeks, months of everything being closed. Or even longer for things like not having a pottery studio, or, shudder, a riding barn because they are less essential. This is starting to feel like a pale imitation of life.

While I have moments that I might laugh, and periods of "okayness", I'm not sure anymore when I've had a sense of well-being. You know, a day where I felt pretty good about things, optimistic, looking forward to something nice, able to let go of that feeling of impending doom. I feel like I have to be trying to look for every thing that could go wrong and try to prevent it, to look out for danger, to control other people's actions a lot, to "manage" my sweetie, I can't ever seem to feel like it's okay to just let things be. This isn't entirely because of Covid, some of it is just the ongoing struggle with the house and yard, and stresses this year like dealing with my sweetie's parents, the guy who kept bringing his dog over, having so many things break or malfunction this year, family stuff, and even last winter/spring of River losing so much weight because of shitty hay at the barn. It just doesn't seem to let up.