BORN AGAIN HORSEWOMAN
So much has happened in the past week! My parents' estate is about to close! FINALLY! Two out of the three lots from the subdividing of Grandma's property have sold, meaning there is enough money to satisfy the terms of the Will. Good news all around. I am about to be FREE.

The stall cleaning is going well. My personal best is 8 stalls in one day. But I overdid it. The day after doing 8 stalls, I consolidated my storage units (from one big and one small down to one big) which included moving (by myself) a rolltop desk, a stove, and a small recliner. Something feels funny—as in, very sore and stiff—in my left shoulder. Yesterday I managed 7 stalls and today I am paying for it. *sigh* Please pass the Tylenol™.

The most exciting news of all: I'M GOING TO A PNH CLINIC IN MAY!!!

I'm SO excited.



The past two and a half years have been tough. Caring for my parents, putting all my horsemanship goals on the backburner, losing my parents, then the year of fog that followed... I've just begun to emerge into life again. But the months since my parents died have been like my "mountaintop". I always wanted to escape to a cabin in the woods on top of a mountain for months in isolation so I could just think, away from the maddening crowds, away from external influences, and really get in touch with ME and with what I want for ME. Living alone in this quiet suburban neighborhood has been that mountaintop. Seriously. I can go days without the phone ringing. It's quiet.

In that time, I've been able to re-examine my goals. I discovered the Law of Attraction and have been studying it seriously since May 2007. All of this has come together to allow my limiting beliefs to surface. I've had a multitude of breakthroughs on a personal level and I understand myself better than I ever did. I am learning to accept myself. I am learning to stand up for my life. I am discovering my principles, my strengths, my talents, my loves, and my own truths. This is the silver lining to the tragedies.

One thing I've realized is that I am not driven by money. My Mother was, but I am not. Our conflicts revolved around my life choices and related to money in many ways. I remember when I was a child, she asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I replied enthusiastically, "I'm going to live on a farm and train horses!"

Mother snorted. "Well, you'd better have a really good job somewhere then, because horses take a lot of money!"

Well, then.

Long story short is that I quickly put two and two together, however illogically, and determined that since we (meaning my parents) couldn't afford to buy me a pony (which was what they always told me), and since Dad had a REALLY good job (we lived in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood surrounded by fellow professors), I must need to be a millionaire to afford a horse, so I have to do something that will make me millions. I had a good voice, everyone said I was a talented musician, and since all the people who sang on TV (Hee Haw, Lawrence Welk, etc and yes, I realize I'm dating myself) had fur coats, jewelry, lots of houses and limos, they must be rich, so... I'll just become a famous singing star, make my millions but save it rather than "waste" it on fur coats and limos, then I can retire around the ancient age of 40 (remember, I was about 8 at the time) and live on my horse farm THEN.

So I set out on the path to stardom. In my teen years, I discovered rock bands, and the plan morphed into my becoming a rock star. From the age of 15 until my late 30s, I focused on becoming a rock star. NOT on writing great songs and loving the music, mind you—becoming a rock star. Needless to say, my focus was wrong, and because my counter intentions were that I really didn't want to be a rock star, I just wanted the "easy" millions I could get from exploiting my talent so I could go play with horses, the rock star thing never happened.

Yet, here I am, three months shy of 45, and I'm a retired musician who is "training" horses. Interesting.

(The truth about why we didn't get a horse when I was a kid was because we lived in the suburbs, my Dad was the horse person but he was also the main wage earner and housekeeper and Mother was highly allergic to horses, dust, pollen, and hay—therefore it would have been up to Dad to handle the horse activities such as 4H, shows, lessons, and so on... too much for him to do on top of caring for us. It was just easier for them to relate it to money, though they could not afford it on other levels. Couldn't afford to risk Mother's health, couldn't afford wearing out Dad, and so on. Understandable.)

During my stay on the mountaintop, I've come to realize that music is NOT my first love. Horses are, were and always will be. Horses were the reason for my forays into rock superstardom. All I've ever wanted was to live on a farm and be a cowgirl. Train horses. Have that Black Stallion communication and relationship. Jump onto my spotted horse bareback and bridleless like a wild Indian and gallop off into the sunset.

Well, I can DO that.

PNH makes it possible.

PNH has already allowed me to begin to manifest that relationship with my horses.

PNH teaches people to be Instructors and Horse Developers as a profession.

I'm more interested in doing what I love and allowing it to support me than to chase money and hate the hunt (which is what I was doing before). I've come to the realization that when one pursues their passion, they infuse every action and activity with enthusiasm, love and other positive emotions, which transmits positive energy to the Universe—and that activates positive energy into all aspects of their lives which is WHY people who LOVE what they do tend to have the most MONEY. People who hate their jobs do not tend to make a lot of money and they feel like they are underpaid (because no amount of money is enough to make this job worth it). It's rare that someone who hates their job can actually become wealthy through it.

Well, I LOVE TO PLAY WITH HORSES. I love to ride. I love just BEING with them. When the day ends and I'm at the barn, I hate to leave. I don't want to leave. I don't want the day to end. On days "off", I can't figure out what to do with myself. Oh, there are plenty of chores to do around my house—just no motivation. All I want to do is be at the barn with my horses. With ANY horses.

So, I'm going for it.

Parelli Instructorship, here I come. (Actually I'm more interested in developing horses, but both are fine.)

To get there, I need to:

• Pass L2


• Pass L3


• Get accepted into the program


• Do well in the program and follow the requirements

So we'll start with the first step: Pass L2. That means clinics. That means getting Cheerios up and running. There is an Advancing L1/L2 clinic being held in May, right around the corner from my old barn. There was one spot left.

I got it.

Cheerios is going to his first clinic ever.

I'm going to my first clinic since the L2 in Fall 2004. With a "new" horse. Ironically the instructor of the May clinic was a RIDER in the last L2 clinic I went to. In that short amount of time, he passed L2, L3, and made it as an Instructor.

Here's the fun part.

• May 12, 2001: The day Cheerios ejected me on the trail, which lead to my back injury and the fear issues that lead me to PNH.


• May 12, 2002: The day I ordered my L1 kit.


• May 24, 2002: The day the L1 kit arrived—it was waiting for me when I returned home from my last day on the job, having been laid off at 4:30 PM—precisely the time the L1 kit was being delivered to my doorstep.


• May 9-11, 2008: The dates of the first clinic with CHEERIOS, the horse responsible for launching this journey. Almost to the date.

If you'd have told me it would be SEVEN YEARS before we'd be ready to attend a clinic together, let alone to have gotten this far, I would have given up in disgust and sold my horse.

But here we are. And the dream, once thought lost, has been born again.

And Happens, And Happens...
It happened. I'm alone. I'm an orphan.

It's been a little over a month now.

Mother succumbed to her illness at 11:42 AM, Saturday, September 30, 2006. She'd been in the hospital with weakness for a couple weeks. They'd done surgery to implant chest and feeding tubes to help her feel more comfortable and had every reason to believe she would go home the following week and be blessed with several more weeks or months ahead. Mid-week following the surgery, her urine output diminished. She ended up suffering the same fate as Dad: renal failure. Complicated with a compromised liver, her body was unable to handle the toxins coursing through her. There is a condition that I think is called hydroencephaly (something like that) where the toxins swell the brain, causing confusion and eventually coma. I was with her from Friday morning when she was still coherent until she died. Over the course of 24 hours, she gradually stopped responding to stimuli and slipped into a coma. She left us peacefully, almost unnoticed, it was so subtle. I held her hand until the very end.

She was laid to rest next to Dad on October 3rd.

The unanswered questions will remain that way. Funny how you can't think of what to ask when they're right there, but later, when it's too late, odd questions pop into your head. The more I analyze our relationship, the more questions arise. Realizations such as perhaps her own mother reacted to her dreams and ideas much the same way she did to mine. Mother only just started telling me the "dark side" of Grandma. Apparently, Grandma was controlling and manipulative. Hmm.

It's occurred to me that Dad was the one I should have gone to for advice, but that I often wound up talking to Mother instead. Dad was so reticent. Dad was like NPR; Mother was Monday Night Football on a widescreen at a sports bar. Conversations would begin with me "listening" to NPR, soft, quiet, soothing tones. Then someone would turn on Monday Night Football, and drown out Dad with the noise. Dad would discuss things with me but Mother would always interject and eventually override him with sheer volume and exuberance. And Mother was always quick to jump in with HER opinion, which soon became YOUR opinion, because there was no getting around it once she'd made up her mind.

I've realized that all of my decisions were made for me by my Mother.

I would go to them needing help researching an idea. Say, college majors or career planning. I'd go to them and present my initial idea: "I've been thinking of majoring in fibers in college, getting a BFA." Before I could even spell out reasons why or present any data to back up my reasons, Mother would jump all over it. I'd state my sentence. Dad would open his mouth to say something, and Mother would blast out "Why? Why would you want to major in that? I thought the whole idea of going to college was so you'd be able to get a job at the end. What can you really do with a major in fibers?" Dad's mouth would clamp shut and my defensiveness would begin to rise. The further the conversation went, the more defensive I would become, because every attempt to support my claim sounded feeble, and she'd jump all over that, too. Pretty soon I felt like an idiot for even suggesting it.

She could have reacted differently. She could have shown polite interest, listened to my reasoning, and then allow ME to make the decision. Even if she didn't agree. She could have phrased her objections more positively. Example:

REALLY BAD:
"Don't be ridiculous. Nobody ever makes any money doing THAT. What are you going to live on?!? We can't support you forever!!!"

BAD, BUT MORE PALATABLE:
"It's very difficult to survive on an artist's salary. You'll probably have to get another job outside of that to support yourself"

BETTER:
"Well, you've certainly chosen a challenging career, but if you work hard enough, you'll probably do all right"

MUCH BETTER:
"Well, you'll have a bit of a challenge, but you're smart, capable, and talented and I have faith that you'll do well"

At least she could have said it's gonna be a challenge, but give it a shot and see where it goes.

But she didn't. She usually blasted me before Dad even had a chance to speak. For some reason, I had many conversations alone with Mother with Dad elsewhere, but not as many with just Dad. Mother was always there, to the point that the prospect of a few hours alone in the car with Dad on a road trip was agonizing to me, because he was SO difficult to talk to. It's hard to talk to someone who remains silent and doesn't say what's on his mind. Like driving with a rock. His mother never let him talk. Funny, neither did Mother, come to think of it. Wonder if that's why he married her? Because she was "familiar"?

That's what my mind has been occupied with today. Where will I go from here? I have a few ideas I'm tossing around. For now, I'll stay put. The house where I'm currently living (theirs) is paid off, free and clear; my house will soon be gone; once the Will goes through Probate, there will be a tidy nest egg for me. There is time to decide. Time to grieve and time to heal.

To everything, there is a season. My parents' season is finished.

My season has just begun.

Life Happens


"Life Happens."

Pat Parelli often says this to people who find themselves sidelined from their once-obsessive PNH studies for a time, whether it be due to illness (human/equine), loss (same), school, work, family, or other events. Many people set up a goal planner—such as, "I'll finish Level Two by the end of this year, Level Three by 2008, get accepted into the Professional's Program in early 2009 and start my third horse at the same time, and by 2012 I'll be working as a 3-star Instructor". Ta dum.

Then life throws a curve—or five—and those goals get scrapped... because "life happened".

Well, life certainly has happened to me. Can it really be three years since Wildflower and I passed Level One and received our coveted red string? It seems a lifetime ago now. And Wildflower's been gone since March 2005. I had to start over, so I bought a new mare (Shaveya) rather than give Cheerios a whirl (wasn't quite ready for him, I thought), then Shaveya immediately went horribly lame—forcing me to face my fears and make Cheerios my new Levels horse. I thought, "ok, I'll be delayed for a few weeks while I bring him through L1", and adjusted my goals accordingly.

Then life happened yet again, and HARD this time.

Forget Level Two. For now.

Dad fell in December, broke his hip and shoulder, spent two months in a nursing home, recovered fine, came home, had about five good weeks, then began the spiraling descent that ended with his death on June 7th from bacterial pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and good old "old age". He was 88. I don't think that's old, really. I thought he'd be around another 10 years because he was hardly sick a day in his life, unlike Mother, who has always been ill with something or another and survived breast cancer in the 1950's far beyond the doctor's predictions (she's still alive and 86 years old).

So Dad died after a harrowing six months during which every one of my goals was pushed not to the backburner but completely off the stove and into the fridge because somebody had to take care of Mother and step in to handle the finances and household management, and because I'm the only close one, that somebody turned out to be me.

Dad was buried June 13th with full military honors. He was an Air Force Captain that had served two tours of duty, and a well-respected college professor. After the funeral, Mother and I discussed the possibility of my moving in while we adjusted to our New Reality without Dad.

A month later, Mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer of the esophagus, spread to the liver, and given a very grim prognosis. I moved in immediately. My goals moved from fridge to deep freeze. My horses have been languishing among the lush grass with rare visits from me. My saddle has a thick layer of mold on it, and my carrot stick is rotting (not really... just feels like it... carrots... rotting...). About the only success I have to show is that I've ridden Cheerios a handful of times now in the woods, on the trail, saddled but wearing only the Parelli Hackamore. No bit, no bridle—in between it all, we forged a relationship strong enough that I feel safer communicating with him in a "skinny rope bridle and lead rope" than a leather and brass bridle with a piece of iron between his teeth. I've also taken Shaveya on two trail rides, when her lameness abated temporarily, and she was fantastic.

What the future holds, no one knows. Mother's prognosis is "three months to three years, it all depends". We're focusing on years rather than months, but living with the awareness that it could be less. It shifts priorities. People have said, "be sure to ask all the questions you ever wanted answers to, while you have the chance". The interesting thing is, Mother and I have had so many heart to hearts in my lifetime with her that I find I have no unanswered questions left. Or, the questions that she has not answered yet are questions she never will answer, because her personality and way of thinking is such that she'll never be that forthcoming. Confused? I can't ask her why she behaves the way she does because she firmly believes "no such thing". In her mind, she's right, or fine, the way she is. Her character flaws are not visible to her and unless she has a brilliant wave of insightfulness (not likely, knowing her), they never will. My job is to accept her, flaws and all, and love her until she leaves me.

I had more questions for Dad than for Mother, but he was another story. I asked. I really, really tried to dig it out of him, but Dad was very reticent. Opening him up was... harder than getting the clam to spit out the oyster. It was sometimes painful to try to have a conversation with him. Mother told me that Dad's mother never let him talk, so he learned not to talk. She claims he opened up to her... leaving me to think that he only opened up to those he trusted implicitly, and that Mother was one of the rare few he trusted enough to open up to. He was a great father, though. A kinder, gentler, more sympathetic and conscientious man one will never meet. He provided well for us, took great pride in all of us, and his wisdom and intelligence will carry us through till the end. Still... I mourned more for the loss of the relationship I thought we should have had than for the one we did. Then I accepted it, finally.

I was with him moments before he died. He was in the ICU, in renal failure, and they were having trouble keeping his blood pressure up. His dying wish—though I didn't realize this at the time—was for me to "take care of Mother and make sure she's all right". Of course, Dad always said that to me in those last months—it had become our routine. I thought nothing of it, yet as I always did, I reassured him again that I would. His breathing was labored and his eyes were looking at something past my shoulder (what, I don't know). I said I'd go see how she was and that I'd be back in a little while. He said "OK". I turned to leave his room, intending to take a break and go check on Mother in the waiting room. I was at the doorway when something made me pause. I half-turned back and called over my shoulder, almost like an afterthought, "I love you, Dad".

Dad called out feebly "I love you, too".

While I was downstairs calling my sister to tell her she really ought to consider coming in tonight rather than tomorrow, Dad coded. When I returned, I was being paged to ICU. They got him back. They prepared to put him on a ventilator. He coded again. They couldn't get him back. At 3:31 pm, he left us forever.

I'm still not used to it. But I feel blessed that I was able to see him, conscious and coherent, one last time before he left. What better way to say goodbye than to say "I love you"? I'm trying to remember every day to tell Mother I love her, too. Just in case she forgets. This has been by far the worst year of my life, losing Wildflower, then Dad, then being given Mother's prognosis. I've moved out of my house, I'm selling it, and my life has dwindled down to playing caregiver 24/7.

One day, it will change again, and I will be alone. Where I'll go from there, I don't yet know. How this will ultimately change me, I also don't yet know. I only know that I'm still here, and that I will somehow find the courage and strength to go on, after life has finished this round of happening.