Monday, September 21

Today I am grateful for:

Imperfect courage that gets me to do the hard things, in spite of being scared shitless most of the time.

Today's imperfect courage helped me drive over to my neighbor's yard next door while her husband was away, to tell her how much I love her in case I never see her again. Backstory: these people moved into their place the same time we moved into ours, and we were good friends for a few years. The woman was very nice, and more truly our friend, the man is really scary and might even be abusive. We pulled back from the friendship, and the man ended up being so scary we cut ties with them completely. We've barely seen them for a few years, even though I really missed the woman, and wondered how she was doing a lot. I recently heard from a mutual friend that the woman is dying of Cancer, and we know how these things go. It's brain Cancer, likely not going to get better, and they might not even stay on their property, so they could be moving soon. I didn't know how to go see her without running into scary husband, but today I saw him drive away, so I decided to go over and talk to her. I ugly cried on her a bit, told that I loved her (I do, you know), and gave her my current phone number. I didn't stay long because the man was likely only away on a beer run, but at least I saw her and if she wants to talk to me more, she knows I want to. It's up to her now.

Today's imperfect courage also helped me to talk to the current barn owner, who isn't always easy to talk to, about me moving River. I didn't have to talk to her. I could have just texted her, but I wanted to talk to her. I made a big effort for this not to be blaming or angry, because I don't want to burn bridges with her. I weirdly think that on some level, she really hasn't made the connection between feeding the horses round bales and all the horses with breathing problems on her property. I would have a hard time believing that anyone could really continue to do something knowingly that damages their lungs. She thinks the problem is only if the bales are really dusty, and she got some better bales, but from what I understand, even okay hay will still damage their breathing if the horses just stand there with their heads buried in the bale all day.

I took the high road, and just said that River seems to be at a point where he just can't tolerate eating from round bales, and that I had to take him home and see if I could help him. This wasn't quite true, as he will likely be going to the other facility.

Her responses were such a strange mix of "sorry not sorry" phrases. She was "sorry" that she didn't want to commit to feeding the horses with problems in a separate group with cubes or flakes, because it would tie her to a schedule. She felt that River's breathing was "just fine", in spite of him breathing hard at a standstill, and that it would probably "just go away on it's own". Or I could medicate him before riding him, and he'd be fine. She talked about how she's managing "all of her horses with problems right now", without understanding that it is not normal for half the horses at any facility to have labored breathing. She mentioned how two other horses who are permanently damaged are "doing really well on this hay", even though they have to be medicated every time they are ridden.

I said I needed to do my best to see if I could fix the problem, not just keep letting him go through it again and again, or to rely on drugging him. I mentioned that maybe what I would have to do is just to part lease someone else's horse if he doesn't improve (I guess I could do that if nothing else works), and her response was "well, if he doesn't get better, you could just sell him to someone else and get another horse". Wow. She really doesn't get that my values are that I would rather not just ruin horses and sell them when they're no good anymore. I want to do what I can to help River, and if he is ruined, then I couldn't really sell him, could I?

Well, after all is said and done, I managed to keep my dialogue bland and kind. I really do like her arena, her barn, the other riders, her kids and animals, her lessons, and so on. Mostly, it's the hay issues that come up again and again and again. If nothing else, if I could be able to still on good terms with her, maybe still attend some events with good spirits, that would be nice.

I don't know if she would still be so nice once I have River at another place, but truly the main reason I have to do this is for his health. He can't stay where he is.

I did my best today to be mature and reasonable, and that's all I can do.

So, I am grateful for imperfect courage.