Break Up

It's beginning to feel like we should break up . . . .

He pulls. I pull. He spooks. I'm a jerk. Dishes get broken. Carrots get fed to other horses. Tears and recriminations. All the things . . . .

Our marriage is in shambles.

I was in the glow of post trauma-fix, feeling like we were one being, like it feels after really good sex, where you are too tired to pry your hot, sweaty, sticky bodies apart from one another and so you fall asleep like that. That was where I was at. . . .

Now I'm in the cold reality of waking in the wee hours, needing to pee terribly bad, with the smell of old sweat and dried body fluids wafting up around me, while I try to pry apart the cold, dried stuck skin of our bodies without crying all of the tears.

For some reason the last two or three rides have been brutally difficult. Ashke has been very bouncy, stiff legged and humped back, to the tune of at least one lunge session to try and take the edge off. We have ended on a good note, but it's taken busted teeth to get there.

I'm thinking we have hit a peak. Plus, he needs his teeth done (the vet that gave shots said so and it has been almost a year) and his neck adjusted. And maybe he is tired of being asked the same question over and over again. Although his answers are becoming crisper and crisper. I know I am tired of the fight.

On my side, I can already feel the stress creeping in when I think about the show on Saturday. No amount of telling myself that it is all good, that it doesn't matter, can't fool my central nervous system into thinking that I should be zen about the impending show.

I have a plan though. We will ride tonight, a sweet, gentle communion with a smooth red wine, and then do a lesson on Thursday with the marriage councilor, a freezing cold bath on Friday with a hair session scheduled just after. Then an early morning on Saturday, although I still don't have a ride time.

When should I get worried about that?