My day at the fair

So…ugh. I really had NO fun. I mean what fun could I have? I was in a wheelchair all day which meant NO rides, most of the games I couldn’t play, and there was nothing to really do. I got to watch my friends and fiance have fun. I however ended my day in extreme pain and swelling. My ankle was not happy with the wheelchair. At all. I was useless and just a problem for them. I actually didn’t even want to go after the accident. I mean why would I? I thought maybe they’d have a game I loved….NOPE. They changed the other game I loved to something absolutely hard. I found the day hot and miserable. I mean I can handle the heat. I just wanted to be able to walk around. Do what I wanted to do. Nope. I had to have them push me around so I didn’t really get to watch the horse fun show or walk through ALL the barns like I wanted. I didn’t even get to watch the animal auction. They tried to accommodate me. But one friend just pissed me off all day. It had to be about her. Her. Her. Her. Dispite the fact that we INVITED her to come with US. I guess I sort of expected the way it turned out. I got a couple prizes but nothing I REALLY wanted.

So the worst part of the day was when we had our friend Myra come down. She’d been at work all day so we were excited she was able to come…at least I thought we were. I was. I would have gone to meet her if I could have. Just to be clear the road near where we parked was FULL of holes. So the wheelchair didn’t do well. Any way this is their thoughts on getting her.

Ash: I hurt and I went to go get Mat..

Cort: I don’t want to. She can just meet us down here.

Matt: Why? I had to walk.

 

Me: Seriously? You all wanted her to come but NONE of you can go meet her? It’s not even a block away. Fuck you.

Kept my mouth shut. Mostly to avoid issues. Myra and I did wander on our own and had some fun. I showed her the horse barns and the rabbits and chickens. It was fun. I had more fun once she arrived then the entire 3 hours before. I was miserable. I was given $20 to spend on food and games. I bought a hair clip because Ash wanted me to have one.

Overall, I guess I should have expected it. I was broken and a burden on them. Hell they abandoned me a few times. Even Ashley did. So I guess I can say it wasn’t worth it to me. But they had fun…does that count?

Adding to an injury

I was walking to the house from the back of the pasture. I’d finished riding and taking  a few pictures. I had stopped to take a picture of a cool frog before it happened. I was almost to the lean-to (it’s at the front of the pasture), my right ankle gave collapsing to the outside. Pain shot through me. I made my way to the house slowly. I didn’t feel more than pain. Nothing was swelling…yet. I sat and put ice on it. Babying it a little. I sent pics to my mom to get her opinion on if I should get it checked or not.

As I have plans for August 11, to go hang out with people at the local fair. I wanted to be sure what was going on. She advised me to go to the emergency room. It looked bad to her. I wasn’t sure still. So I went to dinner with friends. I tried to put my shoe on my bad foot….it was a tight fit. It didn’t look swelled but it was. I went. I ate quietly (as much as I could stomach since it was hard to eat in pain). By the time we were done, it was decided I was going up. I had to remove my shoe (hard to do) because I was loosing feeling in my toes.

Well shitty trip to er. I was treated like I was waisting their time or something. Well, after an xray, it was sprained (they think) and I was put in an air cast. That was Saturday. Today is Monday and it is still swelling. So I am going to be in a wheelchair at the fair since the crutches hurt after a short time and make me exhausted quickly and since we are going down at 11 am and staying well after 5. I’d collapse. So for now I am pushing to get a normal sense of things.

My hometown

Oh lord. I still think about the many…many…many…many times my family tried to move away from Jackson, MI. We tried just moving to Springport. Ended. We tried moving to Eaton Rapids. Owned a house already. What? My mother’s name was still on the deed of the house we’d grown up in. My uncle NEVER took her name off which meant the taxes were on her head, not his. We moved back. The next try was moving to Georgia. That ended because none of us liked the property (and the bugs…oh god the knats on that farm). So why try so hard to be stuck?

As of early this year “the house” was sold. We all saw it as a way to move forward. Nothing to go back to if it wasn’t in the family. Freedom. So why?

Jackson SUCKS…in my opinion. Oh god I hate this town. Between the constant shootings and shitty fair, and nothing to really do…yeah this town SUCKS. It wasn’t always this way. In 2008, the town was amazing, the roads were decent (not perfect), crime was not big, and you could walk anywhere without the fear of a bullet randomly coming at you. What happened then?

The track closed. Factories closed. Stores are closed and closing. Unemployment rates are low because there is an amount of cut off. This town went from bringing people from California and England to no one wants to be here. We can’t even get decent acts for fair any more. What track? The Jackson Harness Raceway. A beautiful event.

Oh and before anyone screams “ANIMAL ABUSE!! ANIMAL ABUSE!!” Fuck off. Please. Kindly. Thank you. I’ve worked for a harness racing team since it closed and lord the amount of love, dedication, trust, and time it takes just to make it to a race. Owe. More work than owning a damn car. The track employed around 100 or so people during the busy season from April to June. Live races. People could come watch, bet, have fun. I grew up with that in my backyard. No literally I just had to walk out my door and down the alleyway/driveway thing and boom the track. It was a great environment to work. The managers were awesome and understanding, the owners would laugh and help during the busy Saturday night rush. It was a great place. Pay was REALLY nice to. I loved just watching the horses run around, hear the crowds cheering their favorites on, the smell of steamed hot dogs and burgers in the air. It was a second home since my mom had began to work there.

If it was such a good place then why did it close? Several reasons but the biggest was slots. Literally the company that owned it just wanted 2 slot machines in the adult only area. 2. Not a room full. Just 2. Jackson said NO. Well they announced in November that on December 31, they were done racing, done simulcasting, just done.

I’m not saying bringing it back will fix anything. Lord knows it might be too late. It’s a town of doctors and fast food. 2 malls mostly closed stores. And now the track is being demolished.

I’ve decided that once I leave Michigan, I’m not coming back other than for holidays. I do not want to be trapped here. Period. It seems like that is what happens. Dreams never happen in a town known for nothing.

Farewell Jackson Harness Raceway.

Farewell a legacy.

Farewell.

Day thoughts…shocking

I rarely do much during the day except today I had visited the local library while Ash worked. I sat watching history stories about the Tudors (just cause I decided to borrow season 1). I thought so much has changed. I would probably have been executed for just being me. I don’t take kindly to being told to “sit still and be pretty” or “girls are to be seen NOT heard”. Fuck ya’ll. I have a brain, I have a voice, and by golly George I am gonna be heard. Owe. I got in SO much trouble when I was younger cause I talked…a LOT.  My teachers would usually give up and send me home with the week’s worth of work on Monday knowing I would be done by Wednesday and read or draw or write the rest of the time. No one cared.

So I was thinking about how much I’ve changed since I first started writing…back when it was just getting my thoughts out of my head. Those stories (looking back) were primitive and not very thought through, characters were and still are based on people I know. Though I never tell people who is who. Unless you count the 4 people who make their characters up for the tales so I just run with it.

My first big story was actually written in the form of a play (or screen write). It was 1492 pages long. It was a bit of a confusion. It was from a Native American’s point of view but it was complicated and often I would have to read it out loud with my friends to make sure I wasn’t just loosing my mind. Sadly it was burned upon allowing it to get edited. Sigh. I miss it.

My next big tale was about 450 pages long and was an Amazon tale but again that was destroyed. SO now I tend to make short that I keep to myself or Ash (we write together). I do miss when I could form full books but that was before my accident in 2009.

After 2009, I was no longer able to hold my attention to a story for more than a few pages (the first few after the accident were literally only 5-10 pages long). Now I am back to 30-40 pages but it has been 9 years of constantly making my mind focus on different parts adding and removing characters as needed.

 

So the thought was just keep going. It will work back out eventually. Have faith in your own abilities. Have faith in your smarts. Be you.

Deep Thoughts

I am a very competitive person. I have been since I was young…but it came at a bad cost.

Singing: scratched the hell out of my throat

Beauty Pagents: busted my chin open and had to have 21 stitches then later had to have blood clot removed from under my jaw bone

Gymnastics: sprained both ankles on the balance beam and broke baby toes

Modeling: anxiety

So that was all by 10 during that. My family has a lot of health issues on my dad’s side from brittle bones (my cousin was always in a full body cast) to cancer. I also had an older sister and 2 older brothers I swear I was always competing with.

My dad had a horse he kept at my aunt’s house. Until I was 8 going out to my aunt’s house to ride put my head back on straight. Sadly I was a very sick child. I can’t remember if I was 6 or 7 when I was taken to Shriner’s Children Hospital (by bus) to find out that all the bones in my legs are at a 45 degree angle which was what was costing me most of my balance. I was given a choice that looking back if I had to make it today I’d be terrified. Either learn to work with the bones as they are or get them set back to proper angle…there was no guarantee that I’d walk again. We skipped the surgery. I am grateful to the doctors I saw and the people I met during that time.

So at 11, I had decided I wanted to do something different. I tried a little football (running was uber hard, soccer, and tennis. All of which was really hard. So I took a year off since I had to start seeing a heart and lung doctor around that time. I had asthma my entire life but it was beginning to get really dangerous. I also ended up seeing an allergy specialist and a few other random doctors including eye, throat, and ear specialists.

When I turned 13, I was determined to combine my two passions: horses and competing…some how. I was lucky enough that my mother was dating a farmer who had horses so I had a real chance to be able to. So with the help of my best friend (and her aunt), I joined the Midnight Ryders ran by Bev Cox. I met them for the first time on a trail ride late September. I was in love. I had to prove to myself that it was going to be worth it. I studied everything I could for the hippology test in the spring and learned how I was to learn to ride (neck rein). I was given a shot on one of her horses in April to get my taste of competing on her son’s horse named Pistol. Sadly in July, I took a bad fall off of our pony mare named Beauty. I BROKE my right wrist. I was heart broken. Fair was just 2 weeks away. I had wanted nothing more than to compete at that fair…and I couldn’t.

I worked my ASS off to get better riding my horses, my friends, learning more of the techniques I needed, and I was given another chance on her pony named Tramp. My heart still aches for that wonderful boy. He TESTED me for the first two weeks. He’d kick out when I asked him to canter. I was having none of his hissy fits. Bev thought we’d be perfect together. She was right. He got me my first BLUE ribbon and showed my how to barrel race. Oh lord I was addicted to winning. On that pony we were running in 3rd to 4th place EVERY time. He was a fast little goof. But after achievement at the end of June, I usually gave him Monday off after a competition but I had to go cause a friend was meeting her mom there after staying the night. Every fiber of my body felt weird (I felt like my blood sugar bottomed even though we had just ate dinner). I told my mom I didn’t feel right. She told me to ask Bev what she’d think. I WISH I had listened to my body that day. I tacked up that pony like it was nothing new. He was patient and excited like always. I mounted. Bev sat in her corner and told us to walk the horses. Bear in mind that there was my friend, her son, and me in the arena. Pistol and Chewy were much bigger than Tramp. We’d ridden together with other horses before in the arena so it was no big deal…till it wasn’t. She told us to go from a trot to a canter. I remember cutting in the turn to avoid running into Chewy because my friend couldn’t get him to go yet. I don’t even remember what happened until I was sitting up looking for him. I was PANICING. He is a 28 year old pony wearing a saddle. He was probably more hurt than me…or so I was thinking. I didn’t even realize I’d broken my collar bone until my mom and Bev were running over telling me to sit back down because Kristin had him. I was still looking around for him. I found him near the gate slightly shaking watching me. I was getting back on him if he was fine. I still remember what they told me.

“If you can get on then you don’t have to go to the hospital.” I wasn’t even processing that I was broken. I kept saying I was fine. I felt nothing. Oh lord is adrenaline a bitch. I stood and went over to the pony after Bev’s husband gave him an all clear. I prepared to mount except my left arm wouldn’t reach the saddle horn. The pony is shorter than me. I felt a new panic rush through me. Did I just loose my 2nd chance at fair? I began to cry. Not from pain. That didn’t kick in until the ride into town.

I was able to compete and win at fair. I was mostly asleep because of the medicine I was on for pain that were extra strong.

Next injury that I didn’t get checked came in 2008 when I had Shadow home. I had a new saddle that I loved and wanted to ride in. I was able to take the pasture one lap at a walk but the second I asked for a trot…hell broke loose. I thought he was spooking which made no sense but it ended up being MUCH worse. The saddle cinch had snapped HARD on his side. He jumped a total of 3 times. I landed so hard that I hit my back and bounced to a sitting position. I stood and went over worried about him. He’d never offered me any issues that like.

Next was in 2009 and I ended up with seizures. I have NO idea what happened that day. We were ridding just fine but half way down the pasture at a dead run something happened. My mom and her ex said he just STOPPED. They said he lost part of his leg in a hole (we had a vet check him that day). I only remember every instinct telling me to pull my feet out the stirrups. I did. I landed face down. I sat up and NO IDEA what went on next according to my mom I was freaking out and pushing Shadow away who was shaking trying to apologize and get close to me. Her ex untacked him while I went to clean up with my mom. The first thing I remember (remember the rest was being told to me over than instincts) is in the bathroom. I looked at my mother in her eyes.

“Why am I in here?” Was the first thing I asked. I was already washed up. She looked worried.

“You had an accident.”

“Is Shadow okay?” Screw me was all I was thinking.

“He’s fine. Are you?”

“Yep, I’m heading to check on him.”

“You want to?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“You were just yelling at him and telling us to sell him.”

“I would never!!” I ran out to the pasture to check on him. He met me at the gate. He was fine.

So why do I still ride and compete if I gave up after everything else? Because I was in love. I am free. When I ride, seizures, pain, arthritis, and all my other health issues seem a million miles away. I ride because it makes me feel normal. I ride because it gives me hope.

Besides I was walking when  I broke my elbow and toe.

Late Night Thoughts

It is hard these days, my mind is racing a million miles a minute. Some on stories I write for my sanity (and often sleep), some on figuring out what I need to do for winter, some on fixing the lean-to in the pasture…but mostly on my dad.

Would he honestly be proud of me? Did I break my promise in his eyes? Would he see me to frail to continue trying to keep my promise?

In the early summer of 2012, I was walking around our local bookstore and talked to him about my future plans with Shadow. I often asked his advice on training or equipment so it was nothing new to discuss these topics in public. He was if I was serious enough to attempt something so out of the norm. I reminded him I never did the norm. He nodded.

“If you take on rodeo, you must understand the loneliness, the disappointment, the setbacks you will face.”

I nodded this time. “Yes, but it is often how I lived my life, is it not?” See growing up, I often switched hobbies and in doing so often had to figure new things out. I was curious in most things and others I did for experience (or because it was cool). I rarely kept long term friends so I was never surprised if one just stopped calling me (yep, I’m a 90s baby).

Looking back, I realized he was warning me. My mother didn’t approve of me riding Shadow, let alone competing at break neck speeds. She found rodeo to be…odd at first. I got her to watch it with me on tv that December. She thought it was interesting after that but to this day does not believe Shadow and I have any talent. My father often saw what my mother couldn’t. A passion. A drive. I’ve loved horses and I’ve always been competitive.

I was not exactly close to either of my parents. My father moved to Florida when I was 8 and returned before I was 12. My mother had seizures when I was 7-8 years old as well as physical rehab. Although I had my sister…I was never all that close to her. It wasn’t until she realized I was not changing my mind, that she began to go to the movies or a huge festival with me. She likes horses but doesn’t believe in us either.

So my dad, my guardian angel, is my biggest fan. I often hear his advice when I need to hear it again. I am never far from my goal but I am no closer to it than I was before he passed.