Better.

I’m struggling. I don’t even know where to begin because I feel like I’m spiraling out of control. I didn’t even feel this out of control when I was 22 and on a birth control pill that was not working for me. I can barely sleep and all I want to do is cry and eat and drink. I want to drink a lot.

A lot of the pain is me not being over Ricci’s loss. I’m not over that at all. I miss her, I miss having something that made me feel whole when I was feeling broken. Ricci was there through all my big relationships, through all the break ups and the broken hearts and the anger and the depression. Ricci was always perfect, she got me through everything. But she’s not here to get me through this, the most difficult and gutting thing I’ve ever dealt with and I’m reeling without her steady soul to ground me.

Part of it is also that whole pesky being a woman thing. I’m happy to be not pregnant and all but I feel like Mother Nature is kicking me when I’m already down.

And my relationship situation is… difficult and I’m battling with a lot of insecurities. I am just so burnt out from feeling like I care more. And I hate myself for thinking this way but I feel like something is clearly wrong with me. Why else can’t I find a man who cares about me as much as I care about him? Why am I never good enough? No matter what I do, I never feel good enough. I always end up feeling convenient, I’m around because he likes that I like him, I treat him well, I’m nice to him, I boost his ego. But I seldom feel like they actually like me, like they care or that I have any real value in their life. I have been taking on this “fake it til you make it” attitude for so long now, people have told me that I’m so confident and they wish they could have that but the sad truth is I have very little confidence. I have many, many days were I feel worthless and as much as friends tell you that you’re awesome, what the hell am I supposed to do with that? And the worst part is that I hate myself for letting a man, any man, affect how I feel about myself. I don’t want to be that cliche woman who needs a man to validate her and her feelings and her worth but I am that woman. I don’t want to be but I don’t know how to overcome that. I’ve been trying and for awhile I felt like I was doing okay but lately… I’m losing ground. I have never felt so low, I have never felt more expendable and invaluable than I do now. And I don’t know how to feel better. And all I want is my horse and to feel better.

My Incomplete Heart

I never know when it’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I am or who I’m with, all of a sudden I’m crying. It’ll start pouring down rain and I’ll think about how I used to have to race to the barn to make sure Ricci was properly blanketed. She was such a princess, she’d find herself stuck under the lean to in the back pasture because hello, there’s falling wet out there and she cannot possibly get wet. And yet this was the same horse who I would ride willingly through all the giant puddles in the flooding pasture I used as an arena.

She was the best horse. She really did everything perfectly. She was easy and challenging and talented and it really sucks that she’s not here. She could have lived to 50 and it wouldn’t have been anywhere near long enough.

I can remember my worst break up, how devastated I was, feeling like my heart was ripped out. I would chose to do that again, every day, for a year, for the rest of my life, than to ever feel like this. This is so much worse. It’s so much worse than a heart broken by a boy. Ricci has always been the most important thing in my life. I remember being told by numerous people that I needed to sell her. I was too poor, I couldn’t afford it, I needed to sell her. The thought was always so foreign to me and I’d be sitting there thinking don’t make me choose. Don’t pick a fight with me over my horse because Ricci always comes first, I will always, always, always choose her. I told people often that I couldn’t hang out because I was going for a ride. I don’t think many really understood it but she was always more important. I’d put off grocery shopping when my shelves were empty because that day worked better to go see her.

I just wonder how long it takes for a heart to heal. I know it’s incredibly morose but it just doesn’t feel like my heart ever will heal. It feels too shattered and too incomplete without Ricci. I can’t wait to feel “normal” again but I also don’t want to feel normal. It feels… disloyal to be able to move on and to feel alright. It’s not the right way to view it but it is what it is.

I just miss her and I wish she were still with me. For one more ride from our first barn up the hill to the lake. We could walk and run and enjoy those logging roads for hours, she was wonderfully courageous and we always had such a great time. Even though the first time we tried to go up the hill, she was being a total cow and we got into the biggest fight Ricci and I have ever had and I had to back her big cow butt up the hill before she finally realized that spinning around to face home didn’t mean we were going that way. She always spun to the right. It’s funny how much you can learn about another creature. Her habits, what she liked, how she pouted when she barely touched her breakfast and therefore didn’t get “fresh” hay for dinner. She liked to fluff up her hay but heaven forbid you fluffed it up for her, I could never do it in just the right way. She loved eating her apples in one bite. She always had to pick her back feet up really high before settling and letting you have it. She yawned all the time. ALL the time. I have so many pictures of Ricci making her silly yawn face. She loved wearing a blanket, she would happily shove her nose into her blanket. We played tag in the snow. I’d throw snowballs at her and she’d toss her hand and prance away to come back for me to throw more snowballs at her. I could leap on to her back out in the pasture and she’d stand still for it. I could ride her bareback and in her halter to the coffee stand.

Ricci was just… perfect and it feels wrong that she isn’t pouting out in her pasture right now protesting the wind. I really, really miss her.