No Pillar of Salt for Me

My sister advised me not to be like Lot’s wife and spend my time looking backwards, lest I turn into a pillar of salt. Perhaps pillar of salt was a metaphor for grief and the salty tears that sadness brings?

I know I can’t get through this time without grieving, without examining my life to some extent, but I do think my sister’s words about not getting stuck there, to not put all my time and attention on the past, is good advice.

My new motto has been to do the things I enjoy most first. The result is that I’m happier but my house is a total mess.

Yesterday, besides discussing with my husband the division of property and money, and selling of the house (the not enjoyable stuff), I rode Murphy and Luke, and went for a walk in the park with Java. 

I’ve been riding both horses only in my outdoor ring, which is fenced and is a better place to handle shying and blow ups. Since they both have been pretty good, with only a few episodes of bolting from rustling leaves and no blow ups, I decided yesterday to ride a little ways off the property. 

Murphy and I rode the circumference  of my neighbors hay field and Luke I rode back around my neighbors woods. Neither trip was very far from home. I’ll increase distance as I go along.

With two horses that are nervous about being off the property by themselves, it sure would be nice to have a riding buddy. I’m still hoping to learn how to hook up the trailer and be able to back it up with some level of confidence before the truck and trailer disappear from my life. 

I was planning on alternating trailering Luke and Murphy to a park nearby and riding by myself or asking some stranger I run into at the park if I can ride with them. But I’m thinking that might be a bit risky since the horses are not used to being trailered and ridden alone at a park and hoping to run into someone that happens to be riding when I go is iffy. So the new plan is, if I can master the trailer thing, I can call and make arrangements to meet up with another horse person I know in the area. Once Luke and Murphy have been on the trail more, I might be able to go it alone. For now, I might be going it alone on a lot of things…

I’ll finish up with a photo taken in 2003 of Luke and I in the pasture. Please ignore the ugly painter pants and gray shirt I’m in. I never said I was stylish, but really, I do have a great personality…

p.s. Pony Girl brought up some interesting thoughts/questions about relationships in her comments on a previous post that I want to respond to, so I’ll be posting something about my feelings on relationships and what makes them successful or not very soon.