12/31/2018
We aren't getting all the days strung together in the chair challenge but it's still working some progress. Here is from our 11th day.
Day 11
We are 11 days in to the 21 day chair challenge.
She meets me at the gate every day, and doesn't frantically scream for the herd when alone. She sniffs my hair and breath when I enter her stall, and then drops her head for the halter. We walk back to the arena building and she isn't constantly shoving me anymore. She's alert, still flinchy but her eyes stay softer.
She doesn't jerk out of my hands anymore when I remove the halter in the arena. She leaves to scope the unchanged perimeter of the building and briefly calls for the herd but quiets quickly.
She checks out my chair when I unfold it in the center of the arena, but no longer snorts at it.
When she paces, she walks calmly, instead of trotting laps tensely, whinnying constantly.
I sit down and begin to read to her. She circles close and comes to rest about 10 feet away. After about 15 minutes she moves away, rolls, and then comes back. Our time is just about done for tonight.
I think next week I'll bring her a ball and see if she will play with it with me. She's always been worked and put away wet. No one ever wanted to know her. When I bought her, they couldn't tell me her personality or her preferences. She was nothing outside of if she turned her barrels correctly and the better she worked, the more the heartless people left her alone.
This has gotten me thinking about people of course. In relationships how often do we ask someone to full their role and dismiss them once that job is done. We don't engage with them unless it's about that one thing or role. We have no relationship. Simply roles to perform. And if roles are being performed adequately, nothing further is invested.
People wait til there is a problem with their marriage before they invest. We drill the horse when it hits a barrel. Then leave it be when it doesnt. What if we maintain before things fall apart? What If we check up because?
What if instead of some entertainment thing, we spent 20 minutes after the kids are in bed, talking. To each other. Listening to each other. And not about kids. Or work. Or money. Or conflicts.
What makes you tick? What do we hope to do when it's just us again? Have I showed you I appreciate you, just for being you? Because growing together is a choice. And there is more to marriage than joint bank accounts, raising civilized children, and not cheating. Or one day, the kids will be grown and the hair grey, and no jobs to rush to. And then what? In the silence, what is left?
Hopefully a relationship that has been worked and fought for.
