Today.

My subconscious is cruel in dreamland. It always pits me against actual real life fears and struggles. For example, on our ranch there’s bunches of really really tough gates. And by tough I mean the wire is so tight you wanna cry. Especially if the gates were put in by our menonite friends who are a whole different blog post entirely.  Anyways, in one reoccurring nightmare I drive a pickup to a field, the pickup truck doesn’t have any brakes and I run over a bunch of cows. The pickup eventually stops at a gate I have to open, which I can’t open of course because I’m not strong enough…

Back to today. I was suppose to get some cows out of the neighbor’s pasture and when I went to go back home, surprise! I couldn’t get the gate shut. This, and my horse spooking at just about every rock on the way there, opened up the floodgates of psychological despondency. Naturally, I slumped down by the gate and preceded to meditate on just about every major life failure. I eventually got up. I got up because I was sitting on an ant hill. They were biting me. But But But But thank goodness for those ants because their anger was the catalyst of my last successful attempt of shutting that gate. YAYAYAYAY. So I got back on my horse and proceeded to ride through the prairie which is really really pretty right now. I even found some berries to eat for lunch, currants to be exact.

But even this sumptuous feast didn’t get me out of my “poor me I’m a failure my fam is old and probably will die soon I hope I die before them” mood. My dad realized this I think because he told me a really depressing story. (my dad, bless his heart, is thee worst at comforting people) He told me about this one time he and his sister, Peachy, used to play all over the same place I was riding at, the same place my great grandfather had homesteaded. At the time they had this evil neighbor named Ike who they all feared. My dad also had a beloved pet crow named Joe. Well this certain day Aunt Peachy and dad were playing with Joe the crow when Joe made the mistake of landing on evil Ike’s wife’s head. The story reached its climax when Ike got out his gun and shot  Joe the crow. He then went on to say I should make friends with the neighbor lady (who now lives where evil Ike used to live) because she lives alone and wouldn’t I feel guilty if she committed suicide?. Then he ranted about how people aren’t close to their neighbors anymore and how people only get together for funerals, brandings, and prairie fires. The prairie fire part is sort of ironic though because that very same day there was a fire on our land about an hour away that burned about 500 acres.  We didn’t even show up to our own fire.hahahaha. So I guess only the funeral and brandings part is valid.

…This reminds me of the time my scummy high school boyfriend broke up with me. I was mowing the lawn so no one would see that I was crying when my dad suddenly, realizing I was sad, kind of panicked I think. ( Female? Emotions? What? ???&:$/@/@&2&/ He walked up to me, gave me a check for fifty bucks, a pat on the back, then walked away. I then got into an old ford tractor which I have since named “purgatory” to rake hay. This ancient ford tractor has no AC, radio, or windows, just a LOUD AS HECK engine so all you can do is feel sorry for yourself and think about how loud the engine is and how miserable I am.

I drove back from my dad’s ranch to my mother’s house thinking about the lady that lives alone wondering if she likes living alone, or has any pets, or if she’s emotionally stable-whatever that means.