peace at last

For the first time in years, I feel really good. I mean, really good! This past weekend was one of the most soul cleansing experiences of my entire life. It rivals the 5 days alone on a beach the Maldives or the 3 days alone touring the moors of Yorkshire. Normally, I have to be alone to have a truly extraordinarily life changing moment. It is usually some sort of fight with an inner demon that I must battle on my own. This weekend, it took a man and a horse. (Hbomb, get your mind outta the gutter, you freak.) I thank them both.

The dinner with the HSBF went so much better than expected. Granted, I'm not sure what I expected. Some of you know, some of you don't--it's not something I broadcast--but he and I had probably one of the worst breakups in the history of breakups. Of course, that's coming from someone who was a part of it! There were accusations of cheating, lying, and faithlessness. Of those, only one was true. And it was true on both of our parts--faithlessness. Friday night, everything was brought into the open for once and for all. We both told the whole truth, and we believed each other for the first time. I didn't expect to have a crying fest, but it was so good to get it all out. After all those years, he still wiped away my tears. I'll probably never see him again (as he lives half a continent away), but that's okay. We made our peace.

Yesterday it was too beautiful not to go riding. I drove what seemed like eternity up to Denton to meet up with a colleague from work. Keep in mind I've been riding English for most of my life. Her horses are all Western trained--cutting and roping horses. I was amazed how different all the cues were. It was all reins over the neck and leg cues--no bit work. I spent a good 30 minutes (at least) in the training ring proving to my friend's husband that I knew what I was doing. I had to learn all the new cues, and he was a FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC instructor. I think I learned more from him in 30 minutes than I did in 2+ years of lessons. Maybe that was because it was one on one, maybe it was because the horse was so good, maybe it was just fate. When we finally headed out for the trail, I was so glad I wore long sleeves. We kinda made our own trails since it was so mucky down there by the river bottom. I've never been so tormented by mesquite and honey locust trees. The latter is definitely worse--thorns up to 3 inches long! My big, bad gelding was so good at letting me guide him around the low hanging stuff when possible. Unfortunately, most of the time it was just put the head down to his neck and let him pick his way through the underbrush. We even ran into some wild cattle out there! It was so refreshing to sit back, and let Takota go. He had such a great canter, wait, umm, I mean lope (this was Western after all) and a fairly smooth trot. He only kicked once, but his ears warned me ahead of time. They told me to let them know when was good for me to come out and ride again. I can't wait!

So there you go--my fantabulous weekend in a nutshell. My most sincere thanks to all who were a part of it!