Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Pity Party

So this is mostly a pity party post...sorry. Go ahead and ignore it or join me in my pity party. :-)

The other day I read a comment on a Facebook group of someone asking how to manage working a full time job, enjoying having a horse, and keeping a clean house. I skimmed through a few of the comments and moved on, chuckling to myself.  But in reality, I was really hoping that someone would say something profound and enlightening instead of snarky. I too have been asking the same question.
I have been struggling with how to get everything accomplished on any certain day and even more so when trying to tackle anything on a grander scale. I’ve come to the conclusion there will be nothing accomplished on the grand scale for the next few years.
I guess I chuckled because this person was complaining about trying to find the balance when she only had one horse. Here I sit with 15 horses and running the Sanctuary, working full time, trying to keep the house clean, AND having a one year old to care and tend to (and forget even seeing the husband figure).
Now perhaps I wouldn’t resent my time away from my son as much if my full time job WAS the Sanctuary but that will never be. Unfortunately, until I can figure out the proper paperwork, find the money to submit the proper paperwork, and jump through all the flaming hoops needed, we will continue to be a private sanctuary. I long for the day where we can search and apply for grants as a non-profit. But again, it’s almost a full time job to search and write grants. Maybe someday.
I hate seeing all that I’ve worked so hard for begin to crumble around my feet. Ok, so it’s not really crumbling but there’s no time to fix things that are broken. It has now been two years of not fixing things that break. I’ve learned a bit from living on an old farmstead. It takes two years of fixing all that breaks so that you can spend one year working on a new project. It’s been two years of ignoring all that has broken so now it’s going to take four years to fix all that has broken so that we could possibly look at working on something new.  I’d love to have an open house and invite everyone to the Sanctuary but it’s too embarrassing at this point to have anyone over. We’ve been overrun by weeds and scrub trees.  The place doesn’t look professional. In fact, we are the white trash of the neighborhood at this point.   I’m about ready to set out pink flamingos down the driveway.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I was looking through our local classifieds and noticed that someone was selling their horse. She had a baby a year ago and had come to the realization that she wouldn’t have time to ride and didn’t want her horse to go to waste. I guess I’m selfish. I’m not willing to get rid of any of the Sanctuary horses. Of course, it’s the good ones that people want to ride (the ones I can throw anyone on). No one is jumping at the bit to have a pasture pet for the next 20 years.  After reading the ad about the horse being for sale, I started wondering about my situation.   I’ve made a promise to the horses in the Sanctuary. But I’m feeling guilty about not doing more with the horses but there’s simply no time.
So really, I guess I didn’t have anything positive to say. I just needed to vent a little about the current situation. Don’t get me wrong. I am happy to have the Sanctuary and more happy to have my happy and healthy little boy. It’s simply a life altering experience that I wasn’t yet ready to come to terms with. So if you happen to stop out, please ignore the weeds everywhere and the shabby buildings that need, at minimum, a paint job. We will continue to plug along as the years fly by. It pains me to not bring in more deserving old horses but I am stretched thin. I would absolutely LOVE to have a “working” day to work on a number of projects but I don’t really hear any takers (I don’t blame you). So if my blog posts seem to be sporadic, it’s because I’m at a loss on what to write without being down in the dumps.
On the bright side, we are working on a fundraiser that will take place next month. I’m sure you’ll be sick of listening about it by the time it finally gets here. I’m going to leave you in suspense as to what the fundraiser is.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.