 |
|
|
|||
|
|
I cried the day he died. Cried for my own loss, cried at the unfairness of it all, cried for my little pony Munchkin who called and called for his pasture buddy after he went to the hospital. He was my once in a lifetime horse, the horse that I loved everything about, that helped me find my joy again in competing, who always made me feel safe, and made everything fun. In the days and weeks following his death, I had the typical ups and downs-some days fine, and others a jingle on the radio would make me bawl. I couldn't look at his pictures for a month. I still haven't put them all in a frame. All these months later, I'll be talking about him, and will get choked up.
But the time has come for me to start looking for another horse for myself. Not a project, or a sale horse, or something I'm tuning for my husband, but my very own competition horse. And I'm finding myself semi-petrified at the prospect. Horse shopping should be fun, but I'm nearly paralyzed by my own fears and doubts. But mostly, what I'm afraid of, I've come to realize, is giving my heart to another horse and having it ripped out. Some say it's better to have loved and lost then never loved at all. That may be true, but it makes it much harder to love again. It makes the whole process much more daunting and fear-ridden. In addition, I have seen many times, in friends and acquaintances, that when you lose a great horse, you can spend the rest of your life looking for them again. I don't want to turn down lovely animals because they aren't him. But having had him, I'm so much clearer on what I want. I can never replace him, but I'd like to pay homage to him. I had a friend who was horseless for years, as she searched to find a replacement for her once-in-a-lifetime horse. When she did finally buy a new horse, the new horse could clearly never step up and be something he wasn't-namely the other horse. While she was never at all unkind to him, it was clear she never truly loved him-never gave him her heart, and in time she just gave him to her brother, and quit riding all together. That's not what I want for myself. I want to fall in love again. But I am afraid. And I think it's unfair for a horse to be "punished" for simply not being someone else. I guess until I get out there and look, I won't know how I'm really feeling. Maybe all these butterflies will flutter away when I sit on a few. I hope so.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
