The New Journey..........What Next....A Little Nudge....

Part One

My friends had mixed feelings about what I should do now that I knew the papers on Storm had not been transferred and I was still caught up in believing I needed BG and WF. Two of the three friends I speak with regularly thought I should immediately file for the duplicate papers. My one friend said if I applied for those duplicate papers now, the sh*t would really hit the fan.

I still wanted to believe this was all some big misunderstanding. I was clinging to that need thing too like a life preserver. If there was any way to get out of this mess with these friendships intact, that's really what I wanted to do even though I really couldn't see a way that was going to happen. Still I clung to the hope that sooner or later it would all get worked out.

I must admit the fact MD and GD were over there right in the middle of things affected my decision too. What would happen to them if this whole thing blew up? I expected there would be repercussions for them as well but I really didn't know. I just didn't want any trouble going their way because of what had happened between BG, WF and me.

I decided I would just wait and see what happened next. I was pretty sure that BG and WF weren't going to resolve their conflict over whose name the horse would be in anytime soon. I would let that buy me some time to figure out what I should do.

Early in the summer I had put some pressure on BG to get another young horse started. The horse only had a few rides on him and I was trying to get as many on him as possible hoping to get this horse to a place he was safe for me to ride so I guess I convinced myself waiting was worth it if I could get that accomplished.

In the meantime my trip to Tulsa got closer and closer. I finally realized that BG was not making the trip even though we'd been planning on travelling together for nearly a year. He hadn't even had the courtesy to let me know the decision had been made. I had to ask him to confirm my suspicions.

From what I could tell BG really hadn't done a thing to get a trailer load of horses so he could go. At least it was finally clear to me he didn't really care if I was stuck making the trip alone. I found myself questioning. How had we gone from friends doing most everything together, to not giving a rip in less than a year? That question really bothered me.

Looking back at this decision by BG to not caravan with me to Tulsa, I think It was a huge tactical error on their part. I had such fear of that trip as it was but making it alone upped the ante exponentially for me.

I know I joke that I am geographically challenged. It would be more honest to say I am afraid. I hate going places I have not been whether they're two miles down the road or half way across the country. My fear of getting lost and having something terrible happen pretty much drives me. I do everything I can to not travel if I can help it, and even more to not have to be the one driving.

It is because I don't travel places I am not familiar with that I don't do well finding new destinations. I am not experienced at navigating and, of course, that leads to issues. Issues just fuel my fear and it becomes a vicious cycle, one that has kept me very close to home.

I have been more than comfortable embracing this behavior and sitting safely in the familiar surroundings of my home. Even making the trip to nationals traveling with someone I trusted was a huge leap for me. Making it following someone I barely knew made it an even bigger challenge. Not to mention that travelling to meet up with Jessie Saldana not only made around 800 miles I travelled alone but added a considerable amount of mileage to my trip.

Thinking about this trip nearly gave me nightmares. It was probably a good thing I had only a few days notice that BG really wasn't going. The only reason I didn't cancel my trip all together was I had promised Rhet's breeders I would take the horse to nationals and I wasn't going back on my word.

It was when I survived that trip with all it's trials that I could finally see I was not as dependant on BG and WF as I'd been thinking. Your comments here helped me see the enormity of what I'd done. I could findally see I DID survive without them and I was beginning to see I would do so again. For the first time I began questioning much of the "thinking" I'd been doing over the past year.

The week after I returned home, I sat in a chair staring at the wall and rocking, except when I was sleeping, of course. I was so wiped out physically and mentally that it seemed like my mind was numb. It was only because I had my heart set on meeting Jody Strand that I even got myself up and out of that chair before the week was up. I forced myself to take to horses and participate in the clinic

While I really was so exhausted I should have been home recuperating instead of participating, that clinic was also good for me. There were friends I hadn't seen for a couple of years participating as well. I got a chance to further challenge those messages I had no one in my corner but them.

For the entire month of November I pretty much vegged out. I sat in that chair and I rocked. I thought about my accomplishments in making my trip. I thought about my accomplishments with my horses. I thought about how many friends I really do have and I thought about my horses.

I didn't even attempt to work horses that month. I did try to ride Legs one day just for relaxation but it so pooped me out, I knew I was pushing things. I was content to sit and think and plan. There was a shift going on in my thinking.

I don't know how big that shift was at first. I just know I had decided by the time I did start to ride in December that I was NOT going to allow BG to work with Tag. I needed to get one of my Legs' babies into the ring and I knew I couldn't trust it would get done with BG's help so Tag was going to be my project horse.

I did begin riding horses in December. I was taking one trailer load of horses a day. On the trailer I had Tag, Reflection and Louie. I was determined I was going to get those horses worked whether I saw BG or not.

It wasn't even until Friday of that first week that I even saw BG. I didn't even say anything to him about working horses. I 'm not really sure why he decided that maybe he should but he did come down and long line Reflection.

Since BG was working Reflection, I went ahead and got Tag ready. BG volunteered to long line him as well and I had to think for a moment. Did I really even want him touching this horse? I decided it wouldn't hurt for him to long line the horse this one time so I let him. Mostly that decision was based on how tired I was by Friday having worked three horses a day.

I decided when I got home I would change how I'd been doing notations on the calendar. If BG worked a horse, I would write in the name of the horse on the day he did the work.

I didn't wait for BG to call me to tell me he was planning on working horses. I went Monday through Friday one way or the other. Reflection dumped me about three times and the next time I saw BG I told him he really needed to get Reflection safe for me to ride.

In the month of December BG worked Reflection six times. That's it! He did not work another horse for me that month other than the one time long lining tag and mostly I never said a work about it other than that pressure to fix Reflection. I figured it would only take a few consistent rides to have that happen and I was going to get that done.

I don't know if it was because I was putting pressure on him to fix the horse's issues or what but by the beginning of the year, BG suddenly was making arrangements to work horses with me again.

By the 16th of January, Bg had worked 4 horses for me a total of 6 days. He had only worked those horses twice when he began asking if I had posted to the blog what we were doing. I informed him I had some catching up to do and I would be posting once that got done. He asked me a couple more times when I was going to post about the work he was doing and got the same response.

It was on January 16 that I posted my "catch up" post . I wanted everyone to know why these horses weren't any farther along than they were before I began posting about what we were currently doing with them so I posted about a recap of things that affected their level of training.

I didn't think that post was really any big deal. What do you think? Little did I know it was going to blow this whole thing to smithereens.........

To be continued....................

The Fork in the Road

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