Moaning Myrtle

(HP reference for the win!)
I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer this evening, but this blog is my outlet to chronicle my equine adventures - good and bad.
Let me preface this here to say nothing bad has happened, I know i am truly blessed to have two happy, healthy horses; a permanent job and my very own apartment almost easy to move into. The thought of doing so is both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. Being wholly responsible for upkeep, maintenance, bills, cleaning and feeding myself is not something I have encountered for longer than 6 months before and I rented so wasn't wholly responsible. There was always a landlord or contact person should the need have arisen.

An impending, as yet unknown, moving date has me conscious of loneliness. I am nervous about living alone, as with the two horses i don't have much of a social life. Please don't get me wrong, I love having the horses but recently have found myself increasingly isolated and even lonely at the yard.

The Guru, who would have been my closest barn friend and I don't see too much of each other anymore due to differing schedules; and to be honest a bit of a cooling period in our friendship when I moved the horses back to the yard from the off site turnout we had been sharing prior to that. I may be being overly sensitive, and hold my hands up to being equally responsible for the cooling of our friendship - in fact I even feel a little guilty as her mare was heading for retirement and then she struggled to find another horse for a few months. In other years I'd have offered her the ride on my girls especially as i haven't exactly been a model of consistency this autumn/winter. However her riding style is very different from mine and when she helped me out riding my horses last winter as her mare struggled with lameness. My issue was that our approaches and skills were too different and when I did manage to ride my girls - i felt pretty inept and useless in the tack.
That and the fact that she has barely spoken to me since the end of June has meant that I have been selfish with Kika and Nancy. We haven't actively stopped speaking to each other and always smile and have a quick "how are things" catch up when out paths cross, but it is a far cry from the long conversations we used to have. Perhaps we are both just awkward around the other as we obviously have unresolved differences of opinion on things that I have never mentioned on the blog, but there has been a definite cooling in friendship since the summer months. No argument or full on fall out, but we are no longer as close as we once we're and from the way things have been this autumn/winter i can't see how they'll go back. I realise now I relied too much on one persons friendship and potentially alienated other friends along the way, which although all still smiley and happy when our paths cross - conflicting schedules mean this rarely happens.

Plus my hoping to ride one or both girls of an evening limits my ability to stand around chatting with fellow boarders - if there were many left by the time i get there in the evening the yard tends to be a ghost town. This is combined with the fact that every evening i must prepare the turnout for the following day. Which means refilling the haynets and topping up the water, before bringing the girls in and sorting their stables for the night. Not back breaking in anyway, but time consuming and time is a commodity i seem to be lacking the ability to preserve.

My working days are long and busy, I probably feel more tired in the evenings because i take public transport (2 buses and walk uphill for 10mins) to get to the stable to put my gorgeous girls out for the afternoon. The opportunity to pet them and talk to them on my lunch break is the perfect way imo to break up my day. Especially thanks to Nancy's daily greeting and the extra warm fuzziness when Kika joins in the midday chorus - that in itself is so rare that it totally warms to cockles of my frozen heart & almost makes up for her grouchy faces when I change her rug ;-)

Basically I am being a Moaning Myrtle, not to be ungrateful for the opportunities i have but because I'm worried that this is a slippery slope into hermithood. I have no SO on the scene, which most days is a blessing as i don't have to justify my time spent at the stable - but at the same time - the time i spend there curtails my options of meeting someone special. I worry that I will end up a spinster with horses instead of cats *blush*

As always this is getting long and rambly,  my apologies for the whining and lack of media to lighten the mood and/or break up the blocks of whine. I am hoping that the stress of apartment decisions will soon be behind me and then I only have to worry about finances from here on out LeLolz - what a way to pick myself up. *eye-roll*

I am really hopeful that when I move and start taking my car to work, I can squeeze in a spin on one of the horses on my lunch break.  With any luck i can perhaps even schedule a lesson or two per week, as the trainer i ride with only teaches weekdays and not after 6pm. So at the moment I can't ride with her unless I have time off. #sadtimes #firstworldproblems
I know that if i can get more saddle time and feel like we are making progress things will pick up for me mentally and i won't be so down on myself. Honestly spending time with the horses makes my day worthwhile.

Here's hoping that if i can re-balance my day and ride one at lunchtime, I will not only benefit from vitamin D & the positive effects of not feeling like I am a complete night owl - but it will also help me potentially ride the other in the evening and/or give me more time to call in on friends or have friends over and not feel guilty for abandoning the ponios. Who let's be honest are always happier when I don't ride ;-)

/moan

PS - if you read all that you deserve some sort of badge of honour. I already feel better for airing my worries and woes on my own little patch of the interwebs. Now to buck up and make the changes that will hopefully help me find my missing motivation