Try, Try Again

Man, oh man.

Life can sure bite you in the butt, can't it?

I haven't been neglecting only you.

I haven't been writing at all. For anyone, including myself.

I have been almost, barely, been keeping up with my column. At least I haven't been fired yet, but I have been struggling mightily there too, and it's my job for goodness sake.

It's all about distraction.

Any of you who get to live with ADD -- whether in yourself or someone close -- know about distraction. It's not like we ADD folk fly around from subject to subject, jump with abandon from thought to thought, well OK, maybe it is, but not all the time, and usually, there is reason behind all the jumping.

Our mind will skitter here and there when we try to focus on a subject, it will refuse to grasp it and work at it, instead, we find ourselves doing this crazy Vitus dance around whatever we're trying to grasp and each random jerk of our head, or foot, or arm launches us onto another thought, then another...

After living with this unusual way of thinking (unusual for you maybe, same ol', same ol' for me) without medication for more than 55 years now, I have finally begun to get it.

ADD has also given me an incredible gift, known in the medical, psychological, and exhausted friend and mom world as hyper-focus.

When those of us of the ADD ilk sink into the luxury of hyper-focus, our mind becomes razor sharp, and can see only the object or thought in front of us.

When I go there, combined with a mildly obsessive nature ("ahem," interjects Damn Therapist, forever known as D.T.), I live, breathe and function with the thought or object as the only thing I see.

For years, it was learning about Working Cowhorse. The sport, the method, how it affected the horse, the rider, where it came from, mechanics, all of it, everything. It was the only thing on my mind for years.

Think about it, I was what, 40 or so when I got into it, maybe my late thirties, and I immediately learned it was a sport for the wealthy.

A single class  at a small, state club-sponsored, NRCHA approved show runs about $180.

This year, the great big, lots of added money, nationally attended show had an average price of $1100 per class. FOR A SINGLE CLASS.

You can see where you quickly find yourself saying, "Oh, good, I can afford this one, it will only cost me $400 or so" That would be for 2 classes on one horse, or 1 class with two horses and gas. No stalls, bedding, trailer fees, overnight fees etc. I was and am a poor person. This was and is an insane amount of money.

Being the ADD person I am, this little hill meant nothing to me in my road to learn cowhorse. I was an open rider, like it or not, because I gave riding lessons and started colts for a living.

This was fine, because I couldn't afford to be a non-pro, the only way I could show was to learn to train it myself. The only way to learn was to ride multiple horses, the only way to ride multiple horses was to go pro....so I did.

This was at the same time I met the Big K. He was 15 years younger than me and had twenty years more experience. As time went by he became as focused on helping me learn how to train cowhorse as I was. Why? Because we're twin sons of different mothers (killer 70's reference for all you youngsters out there).
We are obsessed with horses, what makes them tick and how to tune their tick to ours, and we are crazy intent on riding cowhorse.

I raised my daughter in this environment, dirt poor, scraping together money for show after show, she slept in the corner of many an arena, was "home" with the flu more than once on a cot in the tack room with a space heater and micro-waved cup-o-noodles. We had no money, no insurance,shopped at the ARC and the U-name-it-mart and ate very simply.

She didn't have many video games or extra curricular school activities, but she did have a horse to ride, and lots of time with me. Quantity, not quality, that was my credo. She missed too much school (at least as long as she had good grades) because we were on the road, hauling to arenas in Colorado Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming,  or New Mexico.

In the end, I got what I wanted, needed,  to be able to train a good cowhorse.

Did I o the right thing?

Don't know, hope so, but can't promise I could have put it down, if it had been wrong.

So now I'm on the next chapter and I don't have a focus. Writing was there, my two lovely horses, the dogs, you guys, but I've been jumping, here there and everywhere, my Vitus dance becoming wilder and the ensuing thoughts spiraling off into space instead of telling me where to go.

Maybe it's because I didn't choose this life. I have no interest in paying attention to Parkinson's or Jim's stroke. I don't want to learn to live with my new reality... skitter, skitter.

I have learned over the years to accept and release my distractions. I don't let my hyper-focus go there, because it could be twenty years before I come up for air.

One by one, I let the distractions go, it feels like they seep away on their own, but I've learned that it's me shoving them away. My life becomes smaller and I can start to glimpse the thoughts I need to be turning my attention to.

This last month I was down to bare bones.
No writing, hardly any horses. I didn't go out, started shutting out friends, both on the 'Net and at home, no reading, no cooking, all of my escapes were peeled away and discarded.

These past few weeks I have begun to get my house in order. Setting the priorities I need to balance myself and my reality. Ew. I'm hating that one. But my wise and crazy brain has been peeling away my random thoughts and making me recognize them as distractions until I finally saw what I needed to be working on.

It's falling into place. As I have begun to get things squared at home-- I won't bore you with the details, but it has to do with taking back my life--  Jim and I have been able get on with our new reality.

So, the writing is coming back, I have lots of half-written posts to revisit and share, my horses are getting ridden and I'm bumping up into some collection issues with Odin. I've had some great big leaps in horse/dog training perception, am excited to share and get your input on these, and the stories are finally, finally coming back.