It has been a long time

Since I last wrote so much has happened.

My previous posts built up to my escape which was the craziest and most extreme thing I have ever done. When I first began to write I intended to share it all with you, but it became so much more than what I had originally envisaged. To put it all on paper as a day-to-day diary became more of a chore than a joy; I wanted to be out their living it not stuck inside writing about it. There is so much that I have seen and  enjoyed; every moment of it, everything I did, saw and enjoyed was exactly as I wished it to be, something which in itself was previously an alien-concept to me. Going off and living each day as I wanted to without a job, instruction or restriction was previously only ever a dream. Being out travelling your only restriction are your purse-strings and I stretched mine to the max with absolutely no regrets.

Here are a couple of things I have learned;

Time does not heal

For those of you not in the know I lost my best-friend on 27th June 2014. People tell you ‘time heals’, I still don’t agree. Time gives you perspective, a chance to digest what has happened and, most importantly, time gives you the chance to fully appreciate and learn from what you had. The more time that passes the more I know just how much that little pony meant to me. Every time I meet someone new I think of him. The new chapter in my life has introduced me to new horses that I work with every day and I often think ‘Blackie wouldn’t have done that’ or likewise; his memory still makes me smile. Time has taught me to look on my memories with happiness. Time does not heal, it simply doesn’t have the capacity to.

Time gives you a chance to learn; to process what has happened, to accept it and to go forward with what you’ve been taught.

Time has given me a chance to explore the world around me, to see new places and learn about other people and their way of life, from this I have learned so much.

I am ‘too hard on myself’

I am an over thinker. After losing Blackie my brain-capacity seemed to double.  Without my buddy to consider I suddenly had all this ’empty brain space’ to occupy. My decisions became my own, my day-to-day routine affected only me which, trust me, was a scary new beginning when you’ve lived every day considering every need of a poorly pony. In a way I felt selfish that I had let him go before his body took him and with this came a low level of self-respect and a lot of self torment; ‘what if?‘, ‘I shouldn’t have done that‘?, ‘would he still be here if?‘ are all phrases that swamped my brain every-day.

Research and innate knowledge teach us that repetition of a state or scenario becomes learned. The more  you process or conduct an act or scenario the more you learn about it and tend to carry it out. So for me the afore mentioned self-torment became a natural process. Despite getting away for a while my natural ability to ‘be hard on myself’ is still strong. Without friends both old and new repeatedly telling me, nagging me and supporting me to not over-think I am slowly teaching my over-thinking brain to use it’s power elsewhere. A new life (which I will tell you all about in a future post), with new challenges and new people, is helping me to love me. Who knows whether or not I will ever fully stop doing this but to even recognise when I am doing this (which I did for the first time this morning) is a small win for me. When Blackie was alive I told myself to do absolutely everything possible to help him, get him the best of everything and make him as happy as possible, I achieved all of these so I am proud of me. Whenever I catch myself questioning how he lived (was he happy? Was he in pain? Did I do everything right by-him?) I remind myself of everything I did and this helps. To know indefinitely the answer to my tormenting questions as mentioned will always be “I did the best I could” should always be enough for me, even though the little devil in my head tells me I should have done more!

There is no such place as paradise

When you are stuck in your 9-5, behind a desk watching the world go by and believing everyone else is getting far more out of life than you are you dream of paradise. For most people a beach of golden-sand next to a clear water sea and blissful sunshine is paradise. The film ‘The Beach’ creates this idyllic location where everyone is young, free and happy; I have been to the beach in ‘The Beach’ it is terrible. There is rubbish everywhere and it is swamped with people. The aesthetics of a place can be deceiving. On my travels I went to so many places that seemed like paradise and they were vile.

Paradise is not a location it is a situation.

For me an idea of paradise is made by who you are with, I could be anywhere in the world but it would be who is by my side that made it idyllic.

When you pick out these individual (embolded) points they seem so sad but for me they are far from it. In the time that I was away I had the freedom to do as I wish and so did my brain. What may seem negative to one person and without explanation can easily seem positive when it is fully understood. I have learned so much in going away, in changing my life and I have not only him to thank for it but me too. It’s my time to put me first and it is going to be interesting…

Perfection in pony-form.

If you’ve read this I couldn’t thank-you for your undying support.

Wheels