Sad

                                                            by Laura Crum

Once again--don't read this post if you want to read about horses and writing and cheerful things like that. This is yet another post about life and death and grief.

            We mostly spend our lives trying to avoid being sad. If we are sad we feel something is wrong and we strive to make adjustments so that we can be happy again. We leave a relationship and seek a new partner, or leave a place for another place, or sell a horse and buy a different one, or take anti-depressants…etc. Sometimes these changes/choices do make us feel happier. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.

            But I am seeing sadness a bit differently these days. Since my husband died I have been trying to come to terms with being sad. I don’t think I can run away from it. If I left my home and all that reminds me of my husband, I think I would be even sadder. I don’t have any interest in a new partner. I can hope that I will eventually feel calm, and as if I can deal with life on these terms, rather than desperate and afraid that I just can’t live this way, but I think I will always be sad. Maybe sad is not a bad thing?

            I struggle with this a lot. Despite all that I still have (and I have many good things—a lovely son, sweet dogs, good horses, a beautiful property, friends who care about me), my life can seem very empty and meaningless. I know that many people would love to have my life—they might even take it with a little grief thrown in. I spend my days taking care of the critters and the garden and my son. There are many, many worse ways to live. Still, at times I  am drowning in sorrow. Grief swallows up the beauty and all I can feel is the sadness of what I have lost. I have worse days and better days, but every day is sad. Sometimes sad but peaceful and I can smile a little, but sometimes despairing.

            Facing mortality head on, as I am being forced to do, tends to bring up the response of sadness—however it happens. Whether your horse or dog has just died, or you drive by a clearly fatal traffic accident, or you read about some sweet, innocent stranger who died young from disease, or you see a dead kitten on the shoulder of the road…well, you feel sad. Sadness is the appropriate response, it seems to me, to the constant loss of life that is our world. If we stop to think about it, it simply is sad. Every single one of you who has lost a loved animal need only dwell on that loss a bit, and then reflect on the fact that you will also (if you haven’t already) inevitably lose loved people or they will lose you, to see that yes, sadness is inherent in life.

            I’m not saying that joy isn’t present, too. But always entwined with sadness—two halves of a whole. Andy and I had a happy life together as a couple, and there was much joy. And now there is sadness in the loss of his human life. Both the joy and sadness are real. Just as the moments of joy you shared with your old dog are intertwined with your sadness at his death. It’s the nature of life. Maybe opening one’s heart to sadness, rather than seeing it as something wrong that needs to be fixed, is the answer?

            Maybe if I can embrace sadness as completely as I embrace joy, can see it as something to be felt with an open heart, rather than fought, can accept it as part of the nature of life—maybe then I will feel whole again? Joy and sorrow intertwined is the nature of life itself, and my own little life is part of this tapestry.  Love is what weaves it all together.

            If I believe one thing about this life, it is that death is not the bottom line. If it were so, all religions, all spiritual beliefs, are meaningless. But if death is not the bottom line, and our spirits go on, then it seems clear to me that the only possible bottom line is love—however you want to view this. And if this is so, then I can be sad over the death of Andy’s human body and the loss of his physical companionship here in our home, but believe that his spirit and our love for each other are still present. Joy and sorrow intertwined.

            So I am working on accepting my sadness and trusting that it can lead me somewhere. Somewhere I am meant to go. Somewhere that will bring me a gift that I am meant to have. I can trust that Andy is with me. It harms no one if this is all in my mind. Trusting in love is not a bad thing.

            But one thing I can say for sure. It’s not an easy thing to do. This is a very hard, sad journey so far.

LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY

Driving back from the stables earlier today, I suddenly found myself overcome by an intense feeling of joy. I got a warm and wooshy sensation in my solar plexus, my eyes welled up, and for about ten kilometres or so I just couldn’t stop smiling. As an old friend used to say, I felt “lucky-lucky-lucky”, blessed on so many levels. Wow, I thought, I have a wonderful family, live in a lovely house with a big flower-filled garden in a beautiful part of the world, and every morning I get up and organise my day around riding my beautiful horse. What more could I want?

The feeling was so overwhelming that I’ve been feeling utterly blissed out ever since, despite having done laundry, cleaned the house, been grocery shopping, and taken my car to the garage to have my winter tires replaced by my summer tires. Even now, hours later, I’m still diamond-eyed and sparkly inside.

It’s not that I’m usually pottering around, mullen-mouthed and all woe-is-me, because woe-certainly isn’t me. Nor do I waft through life with a beatific smile plastered across my face, blowing kisses. Normally, I’m just, well, normal happy. You know, coasting along contentedly. The thing is, if I bobbed about keeping count of my blessings twenty-four-seven I don’t think I’d ever have the right to complain about anything, but, from what I’ve observed, normal people don’t operate like that, and those who do (or pretend to) tend to be annoying, don’t you think? Besides, there’d be drawbacks to living in a perpetual state of intense joy, such as streaky mascara, and a tendency to yawn a lot (maybe I’m weird, but when my solar plexus throbs it triggers my yawning mechanism). 

What brought on this abnormally joyous woosh? Frankly, I’m not sure, but it’s probably linked to spending time with Qrac, my Lusitano. Just thinking about him makes me happy. Oddly, today’s lesson with my trainer, Marie-Valentine, didn’t go wow-ishly well. Nor did it go badly. It was kind of standard, really. Qrac and I are improving steadily, it was a good, positive lesson, but there was no major breakthrough that might have triggered my sudden bliss: our trot-to-canter transitions still tend to be a little croupe-high, or croupe-out, or wiggle-wiggle-go-against-the- leg-to-escape-and-just-trot-faster. When I ask for canter, I’m still never a hundred percent certain I’m going to get canter, although Qrac’s positive responses to my canter requests are definitely increasing. The greatest improvement in the last few months is in the right lead canter: Qrac used to hate the right lead canter and would switch leads at the slightest excuse. This hardly ever happens any more, and there are days when I feel we’re both more comfortable on the right lead canter than on the left.  We can extend and come back into a collected canter without losing our balance, and we can super-collect the canter and sustain it for far longer than we could a month ago. Qrac’s muscles are building up week by week; I recently had to have his eight-month-old custom-made saddle refitted to suit his badass bulges.

Maybe what got my gooey going today was the fact that we worked on a dressage program for the first time. I’ve mentioned umpteen times on this blog that I’ve never been particularly fond of competing, that my nerves tend to get the better of me, that I spend the entire pre-show night tossing and turning in a state of hyperventilative-sweatiness. So show-shy am I that I tend to need the bathroom just browsing the Internet for listings of potential dressage events that Qrac and I could attend. But lately, the topsy-turvy feeling I get in my stomach while browsing dressage competitions is beginning to feel a little more like excitement than just dreaded Draino-gut. And although I know we’re nowhere near ready to dazzle the judges with perfect circles (we’re brilliant at random sized egg shapes!), laser letter precision or flashy elevation, all of a sudden I just want to get out there and see what happens when I put Qrac in the show ring. So yesterday afternoon I printed out one of the lower level dressage programs and, this morning, handed it to Marie-Valentine.

After warming up and working on the usual basics, we did the program. I hadn’t had the chance to learn it by heart, so Marie-Valentine read it out loud, and Qrac and I did our best to follow her instructions. And you know what? It wasn’t too bad. Sure, we’re going to have to work on shooting straight down the centreline instead of wiggling a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right, and we’re going to have to improve our trot extensions (Qrac doesn’t have a natural extension in trot, so those diagonals are particularly challenging), and strive to ride ten metre circles and not giant eggs, and try to strike off our canter precisely at A and at C. And so on and so on and so on. I imagine it takes a fellow-dressage rider to fully understand how difficult training these simple things can be. I’m guessing that only a dressage rider can grasp the satisfaction of riding your first perfectly round eight-metre circle (I rode one about two weeks ago and was so delighted that once it was done I dropped the reins and pumped the air like I’d won the World Championships! Pff!)

When will be going to our first show (uh-oh, did I just feel a quiver of Draino-gut?!)? I’m aiming for early July, as there’s a nice one not too far from where Qrac lives, and I’ve been there before with my now retired schoolmaster, Kwintus, so I know my way around. After that I’ve jotted down a couple of potential follow up shows that will take us comfortably (?!) into the autumn, and hopefully get us used to going out and competing. Maybe competition nerves are a state of mind; if I decide competing is no big deal, maybe it could become my reality. Maybe competing could become fun…

  

Anyway, today, in the cosy afterglow of my blissful euphoria, nothing seems like a big deal, anything seems possible. All is right in my little corner of the world. I’m lucky-lucky-lucky.

How about you? What triggers your bliss? Have you felt lucky-lucky-lucky lately?

(photos by Olivia Bossert www.oliviabossert.com)