Temporary Freedom

This is Betty.  

She is a horse, obviously.

She is also many other things.  For a start, she is MY horse.  I never dreamed, even a year ago, that I would have one, despite wanting to since the age of about five.  

We have a complicated relationship, as you would expect from any strong and important partnership.  I am a lot of the time a little in awe of her - she is strong, often wild, often affectionate, sometimes compliant, frequently afraid.  And yet... she does what I, a small and insignificant person, ask of her a good percentage of the time.  In return I feed and look after her, but how on earth can that lead to the level of trust that allows a frightened half-ton of animal to continue to walk towards something that she thinks might hurt her?  By no means do we have the strength of partnership that many horse owners have with theirs, though I hope that will come in time, since we have as yet only been together for six months, but the acceptance she has for me already is astonishing.

In some respects it seems wrong to try to tame such an incredible flight animal, and yet, she totally accepts me and seems happy to follow.  We understand each other in this way.  I too am often afraid, want to be led, and often have a strong urge to run away from anything I perceive as threatening.  Betty puts me in the other role, of leader, confident and prepared to face danger, and she accepts and trusts that I will keep us safe.

On a specific level, she is also a big part of my recovery.  Going back to riding lessons nearly three years ago, after a long gap, gave me an hour of freedom from illness every week, mostly because I was concentrating so damn hard all the time that I forgot to inhabit my emotional brain!  I feel totally free when I'm riding - galloping across a field does incredible things for the soul, and getting a precise exercise right in the school is a satisfaction I can't begin to describe for me.

She also blocks my exit route from recovery.  I got her last year, after I had promised and proved to myself that I would cut down and eventually stop b/ping.  Simple fact:  I cannot afford a horse AND bulimia, and that fact alone is often enough to snap me out of the trance in which I used to wander round the supermarket.  On another practical note, I cannot just disappear when she is in my life - I know this is crazy-sounding, when, for example, my husband should be enough reason to stay alive, and she is only an animal, but my husband, friends, family, are all capable of looking after themselves - on really dark days I honestly think they'd be better off without me.  Betty is not, however, capable of looking after herself, and I know I must get up every day to look after her.

Basically, she keeps me relatively sane, which is everything I could ask for at the moment.