The Year of the Horse!

Or as many of us know it, just another typical year. 

Ha! Ha! Ha!

My hubby and I were born in the year of the Tiger. And you know what? Our son was also born in a year of the Tiger.  So if I was the kind of person who believed in coincidences, there'd be something to that. 

We were also all three born on Tuesdays.  And now that I think more about it, we were all three born in odd hours, too.  The boy was born in the 9am hour, I was born in the 5pm hour, and the hubby was born in the 7pm hour.  

I'm really not superstitious. I just like finding patterns and things in common. According to one of the doctors I work with, whenever I point out the Theme of the Day to him.  Because a lot of our clinic days end up having Themes.  And not obvious Themes like "people with epilepsy".  

But, I digress.

I have been missing my horse lately. Late 2023 and the entirety of 2024 were such effed up years, loss-wise, for me.  Our last dog died a few days before Thanksgiving 2023, and then my first horse died Memorial Day weekend 2024, and then of course my Dad died in August 2024.  I feel like all I did was wait for my loved ones to die that year, except I didn't expect my horse to die.  I mean, it wasn't a total and complete surprise, because she was 31 years old, but she still died pretty suddenly, considering.  

And of course, I'm in the horse video and post algorithms on all of the socials.  For a long while, I couldn't watch any of them.  For a long while, it was even painful to still take care of the horse we still have, and my dearest, darlingest hubby took over most of that responsibility for me.  For a while, I never wanted anything to do with horses ever again.  Which was a completely new emotion for me, for the first time in 49 years.  

I'm over that now, too.

I love watching the videos and seeing the posts again, but man, it makes me miss Nicker.  I know I still have Shasta, but Shasta and I don't have the same relationship that Nicker and I had.  Don't get me wrong, I love Shasta with all my heart. But Nic and I were, like, she was my heart horse. 

People ask me if I'm going to get another horse. I think that even if my hubby was agreeable to it (which he isn't, lol), I don't know if I would right now. Our new place isn't as set up for horsekeeping as our old place was. My body isn't as set up for working with horses as it used to be, ha ha ha.  The ground is a lot harder now.  I don't know. I will forever be a horse crazy little girl but I think my days of horse ownership will be over when Shasta decides to join Nicker at the Rainbow Bridge.

Which I don't want to think about right now. Shasta's 29 years old now.

So I'm hanging out at my Mom's house today. I hate that it feels natural to just call it my Mom's house now instead of calling it, you know, my parents' house.  I hate that there are none of my Dad's shoes or jackets by the back door anymore.  I know, I know, it doesn't make sense to leave such items around anymore, but it doesn't make it feel any less weird.  

So far it's going okay, I guess.  My Mom complains a lot.  This is not anything new.  Seriously.  I've learned in the last few years to just let her vent for a while because I know that she doesn't talk to many other adults during the day anymore, but it can still be a struggle for me to sit here and listen to someone complain about just about every single thing that happens. Especially things that don't make a difference at all in the grand scheme of things. 

Alright, I don't want to come on here and just complain about my Mom, either. I know I'm lucky to still have her in my life, and I thank God every day that I can be here for her.  But I also pray for Him to help me to know what to say and when to say it. And most of the time I pray for Him to just help me keep my mouth shut. If it is His will. Which it must be, because that's what I do.

I wonder if it would be His will for me to keep my mouth shut if my sister showed up?!  Heh heh heh...

Anyway...

Tomorrow I get to WFH. Or WFM as the case may be. The last time I did that (two weeks ago), she got mad at me (not really) because I wasn't eating. She kept trying to feed me every time she walked out to the kitchen, where I set up my little temporary workspace.  Every time she'd come out there - Do you want a breakfast bar? A banana? Some yogurt? A sandwich? No, Mom, I'm not hungry. (I'm really not. And plus I bring my own snacky snacks on which to graze -- not because I don't like what she has, but because it's habit to put such things in my work bag.)  It makes me laugh on the inside, because when I was growing up, food was very regulated here.  I don't know what that was about, but I like to think it had something to do with why I developed a binge eating habit later in my life - because when I was suddenly allowed to eat whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted, I went nuts and wanted to eat as much of whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.  And, boom! Now I have unhealthy relationships with food and issues with impulse control. Yay me!

Alright, I'm gonna sign off for now. TTYL!

Sometimes it's better to receive...

So the other night, I was playing on my phone before I fell asleep, like I usually do.  

Don't judge! I'm improving, in baby steps. I used to play games on my phone instead of going to sleep.  I haven't done that for a few months now, thank you very much. Now I just watch videos and read random articles and sometimes get caught up in searching random things that may have crossed my mind at some point during the day and made me think, I should look that up later.  (I think they call that "doom scrolling" and it may or may not be better for my health than playing games, but that is not the point right now.)

On this particular night, I noticed that there was a number by my telephone icon.  I hardly ever use my phone as an actual telephone, so this caught my attention.  A few clicks taps later, I had discovered a file called "Deleted Voicemails" that apparently contained 666 messages.  That's an odd number, I thought, although of course by definition it is, indeed, an even number.  Religious and somewhat superstitious that I am, I decided I had to do something about that, like maybe delete all of the "Deleted" voicemails.  Because I'm also the kind of person who likes to delete "Deleted" anything files, because if I said I wanted them deleted, why aren't they already deleted?! Annoying.

But 666 is a big number for a person who doesn't use their phone as a telephone, so I thought, I wonder how long it took me to amass 666 deleted voicemails? So I started scrolling down the list which, of course, also shows names/numbers, dates and times, and transcriptions of questionable but somewhat decipherable quality.  

And then it hit me: these go back for years.  One of the things I was bummed about after my Dad died was that I didn't have any saved voicemails from him -- my Mom was always the one who called on their behalf to wish me happy birthday or whatever, and they changed the greeting on their own voicemail a long, long time ago to go with the mechanized generic voice instead of his.  It seemed like a long shot, but what if somewhere in those 666 messages was one from my Dad?  It was a chance I was willing to take.

And...I found one!  Not just one, but I actually found about six of them! Oh my gosh.  I felt like I had just won the lottery.  I listened to them, of course.  It was so amazing, hearing his voice again!  Not the strange, quiet voice he had at the end, but the robust, happy voice he used to have.  They weren't very long messages, and in fact they were all kind of about the same thing, but still...hearing him say my name again, hearing him laugh, hearing him say, "Talk to you later, love you, bye" again...I genuinely cannot put into words all of the emotions I was flooded with. I thought I would never hear his voice again! So the surprise of finding these treasures, and the tremendous joy and extreme sadness of listening to the messages...I was such a bawling mess after that.  I've never been that happy but crying so hard in all my life.  

I literally could not stop just thanking God after that.  I couldn't even find succinct ways to express my thanks, which I usually make an effort to do.  It was just a non-stop stream of, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you" until I fell asleep.  And when I woke up to empty my bladder, I started thanking Him again, and in the morning when I woke up, I started thanking Him again.  Because I just have, like, no other explanation for finding those messages at that moment when they've obviously been there for a while.  

I haven't listened to them again yet. This happened a week ago, last Friday night.  Honestly? I'm afraid to listen again.  The emotions that overtook me when I listened the first time were so intense, I don't think I'm ready to feel that again right now.  Hearing his voice was so comforting, and of course I saved those voicemails in a couple different places so I don't lose them again (I hope!) now.  Knowing I have them is also comforting.  But hearing his voice was also very painful, and that's the part I don't want to revisit again yet.  I'm sure that some day I will want to listen to them again, but not today.

It feels weird, almost "wrong" as if there was such a thing, to admit that. Like I should be saying I want to listen to it over and over and over again.  Like that's what I'd have expected someone in my position to be saying if I wasn't the one in my position.  The things you can't know about grieving until you go through it yourself, I tell ya...

Anyway. Once again I have managed to finish my point in the allotted time, and now work is beckoning me back.  I suppose I should go take care of that; the sooner I finish, the sooner I can get my weekend started! And I was ready for the weekend to start on Monday!

Toodles...