I admit to having an obsessive personality. It serves me well when it comes to being obsessed about riding or writing. It means I stick with something until it's finished. Where it becomes an issue is when the situation is completely out of my control and no amount of worrying, planning, and trying will change anything.
A few years ago I could finish an entire 100,000 word draft in one month. Today, I find it hard to finish 100,000 words in a year. I rode five to six times a week like clockwork. This past year, I was hard-pressed to ride more than one day a week.
Why was this?
I'm a fixer. I want everyone in my life to get along and be happy, but sometimes there are things you just can't fix. Until recently, I'd been focusing all of my emotional energy on a personal situation which was completely out of my control. I've driven my friends and family crazy obsessing over this situation, trying to fix the unfixable, heal the unhealable (I know that's not a word, but work with me here).
As a consequence this thing consumed all of my energy like a living, breathing monster.
I knew something had to change, as tragic and sad as the situation was, it was time to move on and let it go.
Time to get my life back.
For the first time in a long while, I feel peace and relief because I've finally released that unwinnable situation. I'm mentally banishing this stuff from my life and moving on. I've made a commitment to emotionally distance myself from those who've treated me with ambivalence at the best of times and unintentional cruelty at the worst of times.
If you wonder why I'm telling you this on a blog dedicated to equestrian writing and equestrian pursuits, well, let's just say that I'm purging the negative. I'm liberating myself so that I can once and for all reclaim my life. I need to find the person I was before I was consumed by this quest for something that will never be. I hope that our regular readers feel you know me well enough that you'll afford me a little leeway in posting something off-subject. Besides, if my personal revelation helps even one of you with your own personal struggle, I've achieved more than I've set out to achieve.
Yesterday, I rode my mare for the fifth time in a week, something I haven't done in over a year. I hung out at the barn after I rode and talked with people instead of jumping in the car as soon as I was done. I hand-grazed my horse. I cleaned my tack. I felt like "me" again.
So it's time to refocus my life on my friends, my family, my writing, and my riding. Thanks for tolerating my little zig-zag off topic.
Sometimes one door needs to close so another can open. Instead of pounding on that locked door and begging for permission to enter, I'm opening that other door.
8 comments:
Jami, you know I am your best friend and I have seen many things consume you even though you have no way to control it. I see more positives from you and I just want to say, welcome back. :)
It must feel really good to get your life back again - and besides, we bring our whole life to our horses and our horses to our life, so no topic is really off-topic!
Jami, I can make a guess as to what consumed you so, and it seems to me as if it was a very well-intentioned quest. And I can totally relate to knocking on closed doors. I've done a bit of that lately. And the more I do as you say and turn away from that blank, shut, unforgiving doorway and focus on my own life, my family, horses, and my real friends who care about me, the happier I am. I begin to wonder why I knocked on that door in the first place, as I gain a bit of perspective. Good wishes to you--it sounds like you are making the right choice.
Thanks, everyone. Laura, I'm guessing you do know as I've clued the group in on some of it. Anyway, time to move on, but it's sad.
Glad to hear things are better. I am guilty of the very same thing, and it has come to a head with a lifelong friend who is concerned with the quantity of friends and not the quality of the friendship. She is my only childhood friend (the rest of from high school, college & after) and it has been very hard to let her go.
However, as the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over ans expecting different results. So I have loosened my grip . . . and it's not as scary as I thought it would be.
Glad to know I am not the only one going through this.
Keep up the wonderful writing :)
2HG,
I love that quote. I'm going to write that down and keep it close.
Way to go! Congrats.
Just so you know, you still mentioned horses so I found it on topic.
We all have struggles - horse people I think have a few unique to us. I'm glad you've found your way back to a better place.
I stress about things I cannot change too and have epiphany moments that's it's just time to let them go - be it situations or people. It's been awhile since I've had one totally road block me but I can appreciate where you are so congrats. Quite the relief, isn't it?
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