I am working on really accepting that setbacks are inherent to the growth process. Whatever our goals are, we will rarely achieve them by travelling in a straight line. Usually, just when we think that "we've got this game licked" something happens that shakes our foundation and makes us wonder if we are, indeed, on the right path.
About a week a half ago, my horse Siri had a meltdown in my trailer. In all, she fared way better than she might have. She got a bit cut up and needed some stitches. She is healing well and handling not having any turnout really quite well. My worry, though, is about emotional scars, both hers and mine. Opening the door to my trailer and seeing her literally sitting in the back of it with blood dripping down her face scared the shit out of me. I also felt like a screw up and so worried and so sad, all at once. Somehow I managed to unclip her from the trailer and clip my lead rope onto her - I don't remember doing it, now. I know that Sofie opened the back of the trailer and Siri backed out without freaking out or falling down.
Siri and I were both in shock for a while. We rinsed her wounds and called the vet and put Siri in a stall. Both she and I were shaking and kind of paralyzed. I let her rest in her stall and then went back to check on her after a while. She looked at me with her sad, kind eyes. Her head hung a bit low. I think we both cried then, for a little bit, if horses can cry. And over the past 11 days, I think it has continued to hit us both in waves. I could have lost her that day. It all could have been much worse, but miraculously, it wasn't.
So how do we both march forward to conquer our fears. Will I ever be able to trailer her in my trailer again? I believe that we will. I believe that step by step, inch by inch, we will regain our confidence. It will take time. It will take being braver than we want to be sometimes, but that is one of the main gifts that working with horses offers us. We are constantly pushing the limits of our fears, stretching our comfort zone, and giving something new a try. The day of the trailer mishap was to be one of those days. We were on our way to a jumping clinic with a former Olympic eventer. Siri is an off the track thoroughbred. She last raced in February of 2012. She is smart and fun and generally very level headed. This was our first adventure to a clinic. We had practiced getting on and off of my little trailer and standing there quietly. I hadn't slept so well the night before. I'd been trying to quiet my fears, telling myself everything would be just fine, and usually it is, but sometimes "shit happens..." and so I ended up full of "shoulda, woulda, coulda's..."
Next week, I will, literally, get back on the horse. And we'll begin, again, trying to make progress, bit by bit, little by little. At some point, we'll load back on the trailer and go to a clinic and then another and then something else. I believe, I know (as much as I can know...) that we will. And we will both have grown and learned from this setback, but it won't stop us. It won't be the end of our journey, it's a bump in the road. Somehow it will be a gift, in the long run, because we will move through our fears and try new things and sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won't, but it will build character for the both of us. I will get back on that horse and we will have some good fun.
