This last week has literally kicked my ass emotionally. Shark Bait and I found out that we have to move out of the little cabin we have lived in for five years. It is small, it isn't fancy, but it is cute and we have become very comfortable here. It has room for the dogs and the horses and it is a quiet little neighborhood. We figured we would stay for another few years while we got our debt paid down and then make another stab at buying our "forever" home, if such a thing exists. Moving is not our choice, but it is beyond our control since we don't own it. Our landlord is in a jam that she cannot get out of, so ultimately, we are collateral damage. And, as is often the case when shit goes down, Shark Bait and I are unprepared. He has been out of work for over three months and so the timing could not be worse. Such is life.
Today, while we were out driving around looking for a place for us and the ponies, we found ourselves at the farm I grew up on. I lived there from the age of four years old until I was almost 30years old. All of my ponies were there, so I was never in a hurry to leave and I was an able bodied person to clean stalls and mend fence when I wasn't at work, so it isn't like my parents wanted me to go. When my family moved out almost 15 years ago, it was one of the hardest things I ever had to done. I knew the farm and the lay of the land like the back of my hand. The barn was my safe place, my church. The memories I had there were from most of my life. The level of security I felt there was indescribable. However, we had to go. We needed to go.
When we left that farm, I cried and mourned our life there, however, over time, I adjusted and life went on and I survived, as expected. Visiting the farm today was almost a kind of therapy. I didn't plan to go there, but somehow, that is where we ended up. No one has lived there since my family moved out, so we were able to go and walk around. The sticker bushes have taken over, crack-heads have broken all the windows and tagged the buildings. It's trashed and you can barely get around the outsides of the buildings. It is so sad that a place that we took such pride in has just become a wreckage. I remember how long it took to mow all the lawn areas...with a push mower. Ugh. It wasn't a fancy home, but Dad had the utmost pride and it always looked well-kept.
As I walked around, I remembered so many things, but it was surprisingly easy to leave. The farm in shambles isn't part of my life or my memories. What is left is not where I grew up. The pictures in my mind and in my heart are the memories. It's almost like replaying a movie scene in your head. This place I visited didn't resemble any memory I had, any movie I'd ever seen. I stopped and pulled a couple of the thin boards off a part of the barn I could get to. The rest had been stripped by people wanting barn wood for antique projects. I'm going to use them for a picture frame, I think. Everything else that happened on that farm, good and bad, has made me into the person I am today. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is a person that survives. It created Angry Pony.
The Farm House on the Hill
There was a farm house, standing tall upon a hill alone.
A little girl and her family moved in
and suddenly that house was a home.
That farm was the little girls life, her job, her heart.
She cared for all the animals that came to live there
Horses being the one from which she would never part.
She found her safe place in the barn, in the hay loft
or in the stalls with the horses
laying in straw that smelled of freedom and was so soft.
As the little girl grew up
life, at times, became hard,
life became sad.
She would hide away in the barn
because it was the only safe place she had.
The horses were her safety, her sanity, her purpose.
And so the barn was, too.
But that farm house was where her family was
and no matter what happened, they would make it through.
There are things that happened on that farm
that the heart of a little girl will recall.
Things outsiders wouldn't understand,
but things a girl might spend a lifetime trying to figure out
if it is possible for her to at all.
That farm, that house, that barn.
It was her life, it was her place.
It serves as a bookmark in her mind
A place holder for her memories that time cannot even erase.
-Cassondra "Angry Pony" Zuver-White
So, anyway, after that little trip down memory lane, I guess what I'm saying is, I guess I need to buck up and not allow an attachment to this cabin and pony farm continue. I guess I need to be open to the reason for change that I am not meant to understand. I don't have to like it, but it is what I'm meant to do.
I hate doing things I don't like. Makes the pony angry. Damn it. #adultingsucks.
Today, while we were out driving around looking for a place for us and the ponies, we found ourselves at the farm I grew up on. I lived there from the age of four years old until I was almost 30years old. All of my ponies were there, so I was never in a hurry to leave and I was an able bodied person to clean stalls and mend fence when I wasn't at work, so it isn't like my parents wanted me to go. When my family moved out almost 15 years ago, it was one of the hardest things I ever had to done. I knew the farm and the lay of the land like the back of my hand. The barn was my safe place, my church. The memories I had there were from most of my life. The level of security I felt there was indescribable. However, we had to go. We needed to go.
When we left that farm, I cried and mourned our life there, however, over time, I adjusted and life went on and I survived, as expected. Visiting the farm today was almost a kind of therapy. I didn't plan to go there, but somehow, that is where we ended up. No one has lived there since my family moved out, so we were able to go and walk around. The sticker bushes have taken over, crack-heads have broken all the windows and tagged the buildings. It's trashed and you can barely get around the outsides of the buildings. It is so sad that a place that we took such pride in has just become a wreckage. I remember how long it took to mow all the lawn areas...with a push mower. Ugh. It wasn't a fancy home, but Dad had the utmost pride and it always looked well-kept.
As I walked around, I remembered so many things, but it was surprisingly easy to leave. The farm in shambles isn't part of my life or my memories. What is left is not where I grew up. The pictures in my mind and in my heart are the memories. It's almost like replaying a movie scene in your head. This place I visited didn't resemble any memory I had, any movie I'd ever seen. I stopped and pulled a couple of the thin boards off a part of the barn I could get to. The rest had been stripped by people wanting barn wood for antique projects. I'm going to use them for a picture frame, I think. Everything else that happened on that farm, good and bad, has made me into the person I am today. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it is a person that survives. It created Angry Pony.
The Farm House on the Hill
There was a farm house, standing tall upon a hill alone.
A little girl and her family moved in
and suddenly that house was a home.
That farm was the little girls life, her job, her heart.
She cared for all the animals that came to live there
Horses being the one from which she would never part.
She found her safe place in the barn, in the hay loft
or in the stalls with the horses
laying in straw that smelled of freedom and was so soft.
As the little girl grew up
life, at times, became hard,
life became sad.
She would hide away in the barn
because it was the only safe place she had.
The horses were her safety, her sanity, her purpose.
And so the barn was, too.
But that farm house was where her family was
and no matter what happened, they would make it through.
There are things that happened on that farm
that the heart of a little girl will recall.
Things outsiders wouldn't understand,
but things a girl might spend a lifetime trying to figure out
if it is possible for her to at all.
That farm, that house, that barn.
It was her life, it was her place.
It serves as a bookmark in her mind
A place holder for her memories that time cannot even erase.
-Cassondra "Angry Pony" Zuver-White
So, anyway, after that little trip down memory lane, I guess what I'm saying is, I guess I need to buck up and not allow an attachment to this cabin and pony farm continue. I guess I need to be open to the reason for change that I am not meant to understand. I don't have to like it, but it is what I'm meant to do.
I hate doing things I don't like. Makes the pony angry. Damn it. #adultingsucks.
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