Today I got a Big Mac. I haven't been eating much meat lately and even less beef, but it's kind of a tradition for me to get one after a major horse event.
Today, that major horse event was getting Itxa on a trailer and saying goodbye.
It may or may not be a permanent situation, but it's a significant step in untangling myself from a several year relationship that just hadn't gone how I had hoped. There's not a single part of me that isn't shattered, gutted, disappointed. It's not that I feel like a failure- it's that I failed her. I have only loved a couple things in this world more than I loved that mare, but years of hard work and all my love couldn't make her happy. It couldn't fix whatever unknown trauma she has endured. Five of the best trainers I've ever known could get her roughly compliant, but never happy, and never fully trustworthy. There was always something dark lurking there that we could not fix.
She is now in her last ditch effort situation with someone I really trust, and we'll see if she can find some happiness outside the sandbox and on the trails. It's an option I haven't been able to provide her, and I'm rooting for it to work out with all my heart, because I'm not sure what will happen if it doesn't.
A part of me has died with the loss of this relationship, and I feel like it will be awhile before I can love a horse again.
But I'm lucky to still have my love of the horse universe: the people, the stories, the miracles. They are as extraordinary today as ever, and I feel at peace living as the storyteller for awhile.
Just me, my laptop, and my Big Mac.
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