Addictions

Some of you may have noticed that I have not been writing about horses, which was, originally, suppose to be the topic of this blog. I don't have any shortage of horse stories and I tend to collect a new one just about every day yet I don't know if I want to, or if I should be, focusing on horse related stories. I love horses, obviously, and I spend the better part of my day with them or thinking of them. I am pretty obsessed about them in general. My Poppie use to warn friends of the family, "Don't ask my granddaughter about horses or any other form of animal unless you have an hour or two." He was only half joking...

I would never want to live without a horse and need my time at the barn but I worry that perhaps I am filling my time and day with them as a way of avoiding other aspects of my life. It is easy to fall into a pattern and not question your motives, when you truly love what is that you fill your days, months and years with. But I do have other interests and passions that I do not explore because of the amount of time I dedicate to horses. I love read, write and draw. But I find myself reading about, writing about, and drawing, horses! I want to travel the world. I want to get an education and build a career that will allow me the freedom to live the lifestyle that I dream of (horses, a farm, fancy truck and trailer...horses and more horses.) It seems like I constantly find myself saying, there is always tomorrow. I am starting to figure out that tomorrow, is today. I never imagined that I would be one of those people that talk about all the things that they are planning on doing, but never actually do any of them.

I own a reining horse that I have in training full time. She is my dreamhorse but my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so to speak, when I made the plans that I did when I bought her. My horse is living the life that I dream of, so, does that make her my dreamhorse? She is going places....without me. I cant afford another horse but I keep a gelding that I love, because I love him, not because he gives me what I need. I can barely keep him sound enough to ride the amount that I do, which is about a third of the amount and at a quarter of the intensity that I would ride a younger horse. I am working for my horses, they are not working for me and I have no one to blame but myself for it. I do get a tremendous amount of enjoyment in working with both of them but I still want another younger horse (with reining training) so that I can fart around and practise at home while waiting to ride my real horse. I think I found him too! (my friends and family are just shaking their heads right now because I always have a horse in mind.)But how can I justify getting another horse? If I were not emotionally attached to the gelding I purchased 9 months ago, I would have sold him the after the first 3.

So, I have not been writing about horses because they occupy just about every other moment of my day and so I used writing this blog as a means to clean the cobwebs from the nonhorsey part of my brain. Perhaps I should change the title of my blog and focus my attention on telling stories of my past and/or exploring the prospects of my future. But then, even if the the adventures I write about are horse related, or not, they inevitable stem from a horse crazed mind.

Like, right now, I am thinking about how in the hell I can swing that gelding I have my eye on...Seriously, I am. I plan on going for a hike today but I know that I will be thinking about that stupid horse for a large part of the time. For me, horses are a sick addiction. I don't always say that with the humor that it implies. What if I really am? Addicted to horses. The definition of addiction is: "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something..." Am I enslaved by my passion to horses? I really don't know if I can answer that question, which is, in a sense, and answer in itself.