My Train, My Wreck.

 

2014 was such an amazing and strange year. It started out not so great. I struggled with some on-going, low-level depression, which a lot of us do, I'm sure. Some job related stress. Again, very typical. But really, the most disturbing thing I experienced was this vague, overall feeling that things were just not right, and they weren't going to get right either. It was subtle but urgent at the same time. I was so blessed to have the opportunity and emotional support and trust of my husband to take a 5 month sabbatical from work, from life in general, really. I knew better things were on the horizon. I couldn't explain how I knew, or what they were, but I just knew that after an extended vacation, things would work out.

 

Here is where this post takes a slightly unexpected turn....

What I believe, and you are free to disagree, is that the rails of the tracks that we will travel upon for the rest of our lives are laid down in our childhood. You can live a charmed, blessed life, like the one I feel I'm living now, but you can't jump those tracks. Not ever. You will be reminded throughout your entire life of those limitations by the way you see the world, interact, develop and behave in inter-personal relationships (including the most important one - the one you have with yourself), react,  feel, retreat, heal, explore, etc. You can choose to make your journey whatever it is you want and need it to be, have no fear of that, as long as you work within the framework of the tracks that were laid.

 

I am happy by nature, I try to be anyway. Sometimes…maybe…I try too desperately to be happy, which is a dead give-away if you ask me, that things have not always been sunshine and ponies.

 

I'm always surprised when the past rears its ugly head and I'm reminded of the tracks that were laid for me. I get sad. I get angry. I feel guilty. I want off. It's exhausting to feel like I have NO right to be sad, to be angry, to be regretful. I mean, take a look around the world. Comparatively speaking, I…live…a….charmed…happy….life.

 

I know a lot of you had alcoholic parents, it seems to have been, and remains an epidemic, so let me start by saying that this blog post isn't about comparing my childhood to yours, it's not about "how bad I had it". It's not a pissing contest. I know people have had it WAY worse than I could ever imagine. And one of the worst things you could do is say you're sorry or express pity, because that makes you and I different and I learned to hate that kind of pity growing up. I also don't want to be too disparaging against my father. I think he had the capacity to be a great man. This is simply my experience that I choose to share because it's cathartic, it's sort of what I do.

With that said, I first want to say that this is one of the biggest, life changing, relief-offering epiphanies I had in 2014: No matter how much bull shit you go through, and how much subsequent work you do to move beyond it, no matter how blessed and charmed your life appears to be, even through your own eyes, the rails of the tracks you will travel your entire life upon were laid in your childhood and it's OK to travel them. Did you hear me? It's O.K.….you can make do with what you have and where you're going and what you've been dealt.

 

My dad left us when I was 10. Not of his own accord. He was an alcoholic and struggled with some mental illness issues as well. He was still around sometimes, but it wasn't pleasant, at least not for me, certainly not my mom. After too many embarassing episodes, I had to ask him to stop coming around. He wasn't allowed at the stables -  he once brought two shifty looking drunk derelicts out to "meet me and my pony" who sent shivers down my spine (they later beat him, hog tied him, robbed him of his meager belongings and left him to die in his apartment). He wasn't allowed at my birthday parties. Horse shows were completely off limits, unless he promised not to tell anyone he was my dad. He would say inappropriate and random things to people. They would come up to me and say "Uh...Eline? Is that your dad? Is he ok?" (that pity I grew to absolutely loathe all over their stupid faces)  "No. That's not my dad." He was not OK. I eventually refused to drive anywhere with him because he always threatened to run people over while chuckling maniacally and it scared me. He talked about death a lot too - mostly his own. He told me I'd be beautiful if I plucked my eyebrows, always such weird, random things. It was uncomfortable and scary to a child of 10 or 12 and I was happy when he moved out of state. Of course I felt a terrible guilt after he died a few years later, until I realized one day, in my 20's, that I was a child. He should have been better for his child. His ONE responsibility in the world should have been his children. And we couldn't be, because he was sick. I know he loved me and my siblings very, very much, and it was all about the disease. But when you are a child, you are not able to understand that those actions, that life, the shortcomings, the human flaws and failings that your parent might have should not, in any away, affect your own feelings of worth, value, being loved and cared for, supported by a parent. But they do. Sadly, children are ill equipped to make sense of these things and will usually, if given the opportunity, and if they are lucky enough, retreat into their own world and the resilience and self preservation of youth will get them through to adulthood with minimal scaring or hand me down diseases of their own.

 

My oldest sister died shortly after my dad moved out of state, and that was another sad blow to an already crippled family. Erica had brain cancer and was just 18 when she passed away. My mom did her absolute best and I can't even imagine what her life was like…she was a little younger than the age I am now when she was dealing with all of this.  When my dad died a few years after that, I was 15, and I hate to admit it but it was more of a relief than anything. I didn't miss him then and I haven't missed him to this day. Sometimes I miss "A dad". A different one though. One who never materialized. I wish I had fond memories. I wish he was a healthier father figure. But I don't, and he wasn't. Although I've never missed him, I've often looked for him and his approval in others. I married a man similar to him, with issues, and divorced him just as my mom had divorced my dad. Trying to relive and fix what could never be fixed. Very typical.

 

When I became an adult, my mom would sometimes fret and tell me that she always worried about what my childhood was like, that it was sad, how it affected us all, that it wasn't what she hoped it would be for me. Was I all right? I always reassured her that there were plenty of happy times. That it was…good. Shoot, I could hardly even remember any sad stuff! How in the world could I tell her otherwise? How could I even dwell on that when what she wanted, what we all needed, was to just try and remember the good parts? And there were good times, there were happy times, I'm sure. It's just that those 5 or so years really did a number on us all and have had lasting consequences. 

 

I think the reason this is all coming up now is because I just never felt like I was allowed to feel anything about it. The past was the past. I've always been strangely and intensely annoyed by people who stay stuck in their past, place blame for their lives on their childhood. Oh god, get over it already! But sometimes we are most annoyed by the things in others that we, ourselves, possess. But ghosts don't stay buried, the past catches up, and every other cliché ever spoken is true. Dwelling on or feeling sad, or remembering would put me into a panic. I could feel a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach and I would just think of something else. But I think that all of that repression was the cause of my "slightly off" 2014. It just caught up to me. It manifested itself in a longer lingering sense of deep general sadness. Then I would get angry because I thought I had already done all this work. I've already "healed", I've already "forgiven". I did my time. I've grown up. I've become happy. I stopped being afraid of dying, (which is a strange benchmark, I know, but it's how I know I am living my life the right way). I'm super balanced. I DO YOGA! Why NOW?

Strangely, I think part of it is the horse. As a kid, my horse was my salvation, my savior, my therapy. Horses have a way of sucking the sadness right out of a person like venom from a snake bite. Even if you don't want it to happen. Over the past year or two, I often found myself stroking Maddie's neck contentedly, then suddenly tears would come from nowhere. You just can't be around them without being forced to feel things - both pleasant and unpleasant. At least I can't. Maybe it's an old habit.

 

The big take away here, the BIG, BIG picture, is that 2014 was a banner year for me. It all led up to this New Year's Eve. Things will never be exactly the same. Things will be better. Sometimes things will be worse. I know now that the tracks I travel are the same ones that were laid for me as a child but I'm ok with it. I'm who I am, good and bad, strong and weak, happy and sad, alive and well. I've allowed myself to experience these things again, out loud, because it's what I do, it's cathartic. I've let go of some things and look forward to letting go of a lot more. A LOT more. I'm not going to feel guilty for having some lingering repercussions from a shitty, painful part of my childhood. If I want to be sad once in a while, I will be. Who cares? I'm not going to let my few low moments give me panic attacks.

SO without further ado…..my resolutions for 2015!

 

1. Continue being intuitive because it is amazing, the amount of things you can accomplish for yourself in all areas of your life if you would just stay the hell out of your own way!
2. I think I should start dressing like an 80's female rock star more often because I'm really feeling that sort of pioneering, devil-may-care, bad ass-ness that they emulated and it really works with my hair cut anyway.
3. This goes along with #2, but I think I'm going to allow my freak flag to fly a little higher. In the words of...somebody on Facebook....I'm all out of fucks to give.
4. I am going to continue loving and accepting myself the way I am, because I can now. And I happen to be a 165 pound Jungle Cat, so if you know what's good for you, you should probably humor the kitty and allow me my moments of self-adoration and selfie taking. Fuck you, I deserve it.
5. I'm going to continue to be awesome and work at being awesomer.
6. I'm going to continue do the things that make me shine, that light the fire, and anyone who tries to put that out will be dead to me. Life is too short.
7. I'm going to try to say (and mean) only nice things to and about people. I want to be like my Grandmother.

 

I'm Too What?

 

 

I found an interesting website that shows pictures of various people who are all the same size. You plug in a few figures - I plugged in 5'8" and 160 pounds (my current height and weight) and it brings up photos of people who decided to participate in this website creator's vision, which is to illustrate that BMI charts have it all wrong. No two women looked alike at that height and weight, and of course they all looked good to me.

 

I've had this blog for over 4 years and have spent an incredible amount of time and energy lamenting my size, documenting the journey to make myself smaller, healthier, happier, contented, at ease with my body, etc. Sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't, (lather, rinse, repeat), and I recently realized that I have arrived. It's not how I pictured it would look in my mind. It's not quite that awesome. I'm about 12 pounds above my self-inflicted "goal weight" (yes, that's supposed to sound like some sort of torture...goal weight. The term should be abolished!) and never quite made it into my skinny jeans. I did, however, make it into my 'skinny-enough" jeans. For a 46 year old woman, mother, wife, I'm good with it. I know...kind of underwhelming. Kind of anticlimactic. But it is what it is.

 

There are the obvious (and they do have merit) phrases that I tried to live by, such as: "Love yourself for who you are.", "Accept yourself as you are.", "Don't focus on the number on the scale....focus on how you feel." etc. And while those are all good, positive gems to live by, they never really provided the impetus I required for improving my health and well being, or my appearance. I didn't want to do any of those things. I didn't want to just be satisfied with the status quo because I believed in myself. I believed that I had it in me to improve. I wanted to keep trying, because that's what I do.

 

As annoying as it may have been to some people, I offer no apologies. None. This was my journey, I chose to share it because that's what I do.

 

I have settled into a lifestyle that suits me and makes me very happy. I adore cooking fabulous meals for myself and my husband (and even my son is becoming more open to them) that contain no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no added sugars, about 90% of the time. I do enjoy a good quality cheese now and then, I use heavy whipping cream in my coffee, I drink wine and whiskey, sometimes beer, and I eat rice or corn tortillas once or twice a month. I don't desire any of the foods that I'm not eating. I have no cravings for anything. I am pretty active. It makes me happy to run, walk, hike, horseback ride, do yoga, and now tennis. That's why I do it. It = Happiness.

 

I have arrived. And I realize that I don't actually need or want to be "thin" or "skinny". In fact, that is kind of a turn off for me (and I'm sure for my husband too). I love being a woman, looking like a woman, having a belly. I can wear a bikini now, why wait? Who cares.

 

I'm too awesome to care. A sexy belly is the new 6 pack.

 

Here I am, pretty much unable to breathe in this pose, but still...I bought the damn thing and I wear it with pride.

 

 



The Brown Cowboy Hat

When I was a kid, maybe around 11 or 12, my friends and I decided to start showing our horses in some local horse shows around town. We started working with our horses every day, week after week, month after month in preparation. We didn’t know exactly what we were doing, but we thought we had a pretty good idea. We didn’t have the kinds of families that could spring for a good horse trainer or riding lessons. To be honest, I don’t think I even realized that people did that! Nope, our poor horses had just us kids and our dreams of grandeur...and Western Horseman magazines. What else did we need?

We worked tirelessly with our horses; getting them to jog and lope nice and slow, as opposed to the racing around we usually did with them. We asked them to carry themselves a certain way using our amazing horsemanship skills, then pleading with them when that didn’t work, finally reverting to gadgets, tie downs and force. Maybe a stick now and then to help get them get in line (please don’t call PETA, I think the statute of limitations is up anyway). We practiced all of the maneuvers we thought the judges would want to see; stop, turn, back up, transitions, etc. We even perfected the gymnastic art of vaulting ourselves up on to their backs by running up behind them and launching ourselves over their rumps (we knew it probably wouldn’t be required, but we were kids and it broke up the monotony.) Our horses were saints!

We looked at pictures, read books like National Velvet and The Black Stallion, poured over Western Horseman magazines, and figured it all out. We were horse trainers!

Finally, the day of the big show arrived. My friends were boarding at another stable so the plan was to meet at the show barn, each of us riding over from our respective boarding facilities. I showed up at the stable the morning of the show to tack up and head out, but the tack room was locked and the gal who ran the place was nowhere to be seen (she was probably in bed, I may have failed to mention to her I would be coming at 6am). I knocked and knocked on the door of the house, but she wouldn’t wake up. In a panic, I ran to the stable next door (Fremont was full of boarding stables when I was a kid, believe it or not!) and the couple who owned it let me borrow some of their tack.

Off we trotted down the road! When our class was called, I entered the arena, heart pounding, hands shaking. It was do or die time! After a few times around the arena I heard my name called. Apparently, they had been calling for me to come to the center of the arena for several seconds, but I couldn’t hear over the pounding of my heart. One of my friends’ parents had to lean over the arena wall to whisper to me as I passed by. I went to the center of the arena to meet with the judge. With the over abundant confidence that only a child or an idiot would have, along with the intense pride in my horse, I thought maybe they were going to tell me that I was being advanced to the “Intermediate” class. Maybe my horse was actually “too good” for the beginner class!

Sadly, that was not the case. The judge informed me that I would have to be disqualified because I didn’t have a hat. Or a western shirt, or a bridle, or anything else I needed for that matter. I cringe in embarrassment just thinking about it. Yes, I was that kid. I thought I was ok. I was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a horse on it. I just had no idea. I was also riding in a hackamore (remember, I couldn’t get into the tack room so I just grabbed what the neighbor handed me). I hope I was at least wearing boots, but it’s sort of doubtful judging by all the pictures of me riding in tennis shoes or barefoot. I just didn’t know better.

Luckily, a friend's mother took charge (my friend was riding in the advanced classes later on). She ran over and made her daughter hand over her hat, shirt, and bridle (and maybe boots). I say “made” because my friend wasn’t thrilled about it. But her mom would have none of her sass and practically hissed “take them off now!”  We did a quick presto-chango and I was back in the arena. The judges held the class for me which, looking back, I think is so incredibly nice. I would have been crushed if I had missed it. We ended up with a few ribbons that day. I’m not sure if we won blue, but I remember we did pretty well, all things considered. I was proud of my horse, and luckily too young and excited about our ribbons to be overly mortified by my naivete. Yet, it was a very good lesson.

My Grandpa Frank was one of my biggest fans and supporters when it came to my horse.  He called me “Tex” and let me read all of his Louis Lamoure books when I would visit them at the lake.  He was pretty certain that I would make a great cowboy girl one day. I remember the day that I received the news that Mandy, the horse of my dreams (and the horse from the story above), was being given to me. It was one of the best and worst days of my life. I was so excited! But it also meant that I would have to sell my first pony. I hung back in the stairwell crying that morning, unable to come down to the kitchen and face people, ashamed that I was being given such an amazing gift and feeling so heartbroken at the same time. Grandpa Frank called me in, sat me down and gave me the kindest talk an old man could ever give a heart-broken little girl. He was very understanding of my heartbreak. But he spoke to me "cowboy to cowboy"-  very seriously.  I remember feeling much better after our talk, though I don’t remember exactly what he said. It was my Grandpa Frank who gave me my very first cowboy hat the Christmas after the horse show debacle.  This is me, Christmas morning, trying on my very own, very real,  and very large cowboy hat!

 

A few years ago my mom asked me if I wanted to keep the hat or if she could get rid of it. Since I thought I had “hung up my spurs for good” after Mandy died at the ripe old age of 36, I told her to go ahead and sell it or give it away. In hindsight, I wish I had hung on to that hat. It might actually fit now!

Every time I put a cowboy hat on today, I still feel a little bit like that goofy kid who didn’t know anything but didn’t know any better. The kid who was so blinded by passion and pony-love, that her attire at a horse show was of no consequence, it was secondary to the excitement of the day and the performance of her horse. I’m just playing dress up now, wanting to ride my horse and do all the right things, but knowing now, that I really know nothing. The lesson in this is that it might be good to reconnect with some of the confidence I had as a kid, but tempered with the humility and common sense you grow into as an adult. I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable in the hat, and hoping the rest will come in time. But God forbid I ever have the confidence I had as a child! I think I’d rather not. And so does my horse, I'm sure.