My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys....

I grew up chaotic. When I was seven I went to stay with my dad for the summer. We went to a rodeo and I fell in love with the raffle pony. His name was Ratchet. He was grumpy, kicky and bad tempered.He was palomino and my absolute dream. My Dad had a bit of a thing for the girl running the raffle so he bought me two dozen tickets.

I didn't win the pony and I was devastated. My Dad tracked down the family that did win the pony and arranged to rent him for me for the rest of the summer. I loved that pony. I brushed him and rode around on him all day everyday. I fed him and watered him and at the end of the summer I cried bitterly as he was loaded onto the trailer to spend his life as a pasture buddy for another horse. My Dad hugged me and promised someday he would buy me another pony I just had to be patient.

I was addicted. I read horse books by the dozen and begged everytime I visited my cousins to ride their ponies.

When I was nine, I had a huge garage sale that my mother didn't know about . I took my $75.00 and I bought a feedlot colt. I hid that colt from my mother for 3 years and worked for his keep and brushed him and loved him and named him Frostbite. When my mother found out about him she sold him and I was grounded for months.

In my teens I worked as a farm hand whenever I could, I spent endless hours in the show barns at the Calgary Stampede, I hung around at rodeos with my friends, anything just to be close to my great love. Years passed and I worked, slept, drank, danced, cared for children. I was miserable. Often depressed, suicidal, angry, aggressive.

When I was in my mid twenties I hurt my back, bad. The second time I hurt it the Dr. suggested I start riding in order to build core strength and to help restore the use of my back. I went to stables as often as I could afford to which honestly wasn't much. I suffered. I moved to Saskatchewan when I was 29 and the first thing I did was buy a horse. I phoned my dad and begged him to help fund my madness and he agreed.

 I bought a beautiful nine year old grey Arabian mare name Star. I am here to tell you dear reader that at $1200 I stole this horse. she has been my best friend and partner through thick and thin. It has been twelve years and I have had many horses. I truly love them all. My soul is at rest living the life I was born for. I hold my breath each winter dieing for the summer to come and I play the country songs I grew up on aching for my existence to do them justice.

It's Just A Joke.....

I saw a post that offended me yesterday. Really offended me. It was a drawing of an adult man having sex with an infant. I reported the photo. I never do that, I am a pretty live and let live kind of person but that was too far. It got me thinking. How have we come so far that this is considered humor?

Women have been fighting over objectification for decades but I present this, we are objectifying all mankind and all living things for the purpose of entertainment. To the person who wrote that cartoon that baby wasn't a person but merely a prop. When I saw that drawing that baby was a human being having its entire life destroyed for sport. More and more we see men becoming the objects in advertising,in jokes , in life. I think we are slowly achieving equal rights but I don't think we are gaining ground. I think all mankind is slowly becoming objects for the entertainment of others and it terrifies me that this is the world we are leaving for our children.

I refuse to read "50 Shades Of Grey" because it romanticizes the grooming of a young woman as a sex slave. Please believe me as a victim of childhood molestation and rape that grooming is not romantic. It damages how you view sex and relationships eternally.

Allow me to challenge you dear reader next time you see a meme or cartoon that uses a living thing as a prop take a step back and see that living being as an individual and view the joke for what it is ... the dehumanization of our species so that it becomes ok to use others for pleasure despite their pain.

We don't ride 'em anymore.....

I have horses and dogs. I live breathe and sleep horses and dogs.
I live in a place where the winters are cold and it feels like everyone, myself, the kids, the horses and the dogs are in storage eight months of the year.

Riding my horse is my therapy both physical and emotional, so in summer I am a sort of fit balanced, confident woman with self esteem and sass. In the winter I slowly melt into a lump of sorrow and grumpy darkness. I have tried a few different things to not have this happen but to no avail. My Dr. Has expressed that this pattern is also not good for my spine which I injured badly eighteen years ago.

I'm pretty passionate in this area, they are not fusing my spine. So today I looked at the exercise equipment in the basement and tried to decide what would fit in the living room.

I will go and check the horses an feed and water them and feed my dogs and take them outside and pray for spring when we can ride.

I'm your Huckleberry....

I watched Tombstone with my fourteen year old last night. 

I have watched it many times but this time I was hit hard by several lines in the movie. Especially when Doc Holiday said he did what he did because Wyatt was his friend and he didn't have many. I thought about that a lot today. Doc Holiday clearly was a man with few boundaries and morals that were fluid to say the least. By the time he arrived in Tombstone he was fatally ill with tuberculosis. He was a man with nothing to lose and nothing to gain. He was loyal to the bone but only to a few. He didn't wade into the fray because of the people of the town, or because he had ideas about making the world a better place. He did all he did because Wyatt Earp was his friend. 

There are more than a few personality traits I share with Doc and it was very easy for me to understand and appreciate him as Val Kilmer brought him to life. I too am a person of few friends. I too am a person with fluid boundaries governed mainly by my desire to watch my children grow. I don't know how those boundaries would change if I should become fatally ill but I suspect, knowing me, nothing to lose would not be favorable for those who stand against me.

Like Doc I remember the days when I was fierce and powerful. Like Doc I would give my last to a true friend in need of it. It made me a little sad to watch Doc die without his boots on, I can imagine no worse fate myself. Unlike Doc I have no Wyatt Earp. I have a handful of amazing friends I would gleefully wade into battle with, but I lack the depth of understanding that Wyatt had for Doc. He knew him. He fully accepted him as is. Maybe that is where my homesickness comes from. No matter where I am I always feel like I want to go home. Perhaps I just ache to find my Wyatt Earp.  

And then I lost it....

So... for the last few days I have been noticeably absent from the internet....
The reason for this is very simple and somewhat ridiculous to be honest. I lost my computer. Allow me to explain.

I have ADHD combined type. I was born with part of my brain unprepared to function as it does in other people so I have spent my entire life in chaos. Some days I can almost fake it and live like the world around me. Those days I can talk myself into believing that I'm going to be finally able to be organized and not be the mom running around searching for socks for my kids at the last minute, or chasing dogs down the street because I forgot to secure the latch on the run after I took them out.

I have been called "lazy", "stupid","rude " and a myriad of other things for things I genuinely couldn't help and never meant to do. Being a disorganized mom is painful and humiliating, who would do that on purpose? Why would any teenager WANT to be berated in front of their peers and called names ?

All that said some things about having ADHD are not bad. More than 50% of adults with ADHD have an above average IQ. I lack impulse control so I have a lot of great stories. There are other things too but my mind has wandered a bit.

Back to my computer, I went to visit family in the city last weekend for Valentines day. I had a great time and even managed to sneak in some cuddles with my new baby cousin and my Grampa. The weekend was busy and hectic but wonderful. Time to come home came about and I loaded the car, strapped in my child and hit the road, I was thinking about the week ahead and my daughter was bombarding me with questions. After arriving home I opted not to unload the car because I was tired so I filled my arms with necessities and shuffled into the house behind my active seven year old. The week flew by and I distractedly checked the car, phoned my mother and searched my house , the computer nowhere to be found. This morning I mentioned to my fourteen year old that my computer was missing and I thought it might be time to report it to the police and my daughter said... MOM its right under the table its been there all week.

Welcome to my chaos dear reader.  

Quest for Normal...

I want to be normal. I crave it. I have spent my whole life chasing it like a cat chasing a laser pointer. I seem to be able to fit in for a short time but eventually it all falls apart. I have tried everything, organizational websites, medications, you name I have tried it. My relationships have definately suffered for it. I am the girl that disappears for a couple days for no reason other than I got sidetracked. 

I'm not a bad person, just different and throughout my life I have been fortunate to have people who accept and love me as is, even when the darkness is so thick I can't see anyone. It has taken many years for me to realize there is no normal. 

I cant be the mom baking cookies and canning, but I have tried. I'm the mom that turns off at the horses on the way to school because my teenager needs to connect and feel safe. I'm the mom that homeschools my six year old because she doesn't feel accepted at school. I'm the mom that teaches my daughter how to shin scrape because of my overwhelming fear someone will try to hurt her.I'm the mom that gives my little girls a truck when they are too young to drive because it is fun to let them drive around the field.  I'm the mom that cries because I fed my kids hotdogs instead of "real food". I'm the mom who never hangs around with other moms or lets people in the house because of my feelings of inadequacy and my fear that people will find out we aren't "normal". 

Decent into madness....

It's hard to say , but I think I was a fairly normal child, my family was average, my parents were young. No one ever took a lot of interest in what I did so I just did. Somewhere along the way things got sideways. I started sneaking out, drinking, fighting , doing drugs, younger than a person would normally expect. My Mom send me to my Dad in June of 1988 because I was just too far gone for her. I was suicidal or homicidal most of  the time. I detoxed in a small bedroom where I had tinfoiled the windows and slowly began to heal from the horrible things I had done to myself and the pain I had caused others.

Sadly as the drugs left my system I was faced with a new reality. There were demons in my blood I couldn't tame. I had no idea how to cope with the inky darkness lapping at my hands and feet and the effects of the horrible things I had seen and done. My first depressive episode of record struck my like an atomic bomb. I explained to the school counsellor, as I have explained to many since that I am not afraid to die ... moreso, I am afraid to live.

And So It Begins....

Be gentle, its my first time :)

I used to write. I used to write every chance I got. I wrote about the darkness in my soul, my pain and the pure torment of what I now know was undiagnosed mental illness.

People read it, bands bought it for lyrics, poetry collections published it.

Yep, I used to write.

Then I had to grow up. I had to work, I had to mom, I had to adult and at the end of the day I was way too tired to write.

I forgot about writing and the darkness swallowed my soul. I struggled, I fought and I barely survived. A few days ago I got a message from a friend, a short message.... Didn't you used to write?