Happy? Well, Mostly

Fast forward again a bunch of years. Life is pretty darn good, but right at the moment, it doesn't seem to have much...direction. I go to work, making a very long commute. I work. I go home. It's too late to do anything with the horses because of that long commute, so I have dinner, I try to turn my brain off by watching the tube for an hour, I go to bed. The next day, repeat. Hmmmm. Not too much about all of those activities that is soul-satisfying. Just a nice, dull rhythm. On the weekends, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, running other errands. Dull, dull, dull.

But wait! What's this? A self-improvement company I get emails from is offering a course called "Life Directions". This sounds like something I could use. Get me signed up, fast!

The course is everything it's advertised to be, and by the end of workshop, I know what I should be doing. Any guesses? It involves children and ...... horses.

It also means sticking my neck out and going for it. I'm all enthused for a while, and then, slowly, the excitement dies, my inner voice (who really likes dull) kicks in and reminds me how scary all that would be, and I drift back into my nice, safe routine.

There's one difference. That dull routine doesn't seem so appealing any more. There's this prodding in the back of my mind - horses/kids/horses/kids/they need you/horses/kids/

Oh, shut UP.

But the prodder doesn't shut.

The Beginning

How did I get into this.....situation? Life had been going along nicely - wonderful husband, beautiful property, horse of my dreams, great j.o.b. that paid all the bills and that I actually enjoyed. But something was missing. What had happened to my dreams?

When I was little, I wanted to be Dale Evans, Roy Rogers wife. My mom even went along with that little fantasy, telling me she and my dad had actually considered naming me Dale. I think she was hoping if I would focus on being Dale-the-person, I would stop acting like Buttermilk-the-horse and embarassing everyone in the family with my foot-stomping and nickering. It wasn't so bad at home, but in public? In church? I was pretty obsessed with all things equine at a fairly young age.

Fast forward a number of years and the horse obsession hadn't lessened much, although the nickering was confined to less public venues. I started dreaming about having a riding stable and giving riding lessons to kids. Yeah, that sounded like fun! Plus, I could share my love of horses and all animals, and help kids understand we're all connected somehow. What a cool idea.

No money in this, though, eh? Gotta make the dollars. My younger self was easily swayed onto the path of least resistance; getting a good job and being a good citizen. Living the safe life. Nobody's fault but my own, that. After all, when I had enough money, then I could afford the large property, the school horses, the covered arena, etc etc etc. Rationalization ran rampant.

Little by little the dream drifted away. Until.....

What's it all about?

Here we are, with a brand new blog, which will be about changing my life.

My life is good, but for some time now (years, in fact), I've known I'm supposed to be doing something else. I've resisted it; I've looked the other way; I've pretended I wasn't listening; I avoided it about as strongly as you can avoid anything, and of course, because I avoided it, it kept sticking itself in my face.

The first few blogs will be a little history - how did I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing? Why was I so resistant? What did I need to get past in order to move forward? Then we'll start documenting the journey itself.

It's said that a journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. This is that first step. I hope this journey is helpful, interesting, AND entertaining, as I become who I really am.