Sometimes I liken living with myself like traveling through the Bermuda Triangle. If you are unfamiliar with that space in the world, the Bermuda Triangle, ( also known as Hurricane Alley,) is a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
My house is like Hurricane Alley often, and despite my best efforts at trying to be orderly and constant to make my life easier, I fail miserably. From childhood, most people are taught that being neat and orderly is a good thing. I don’t remember much of that because my often-traumatic childhood is a bit of a blur and it hurts my head to think about it. I do have vague recollections of being sent to my room to tidy it and remaining there for hours because the whole exercise was so overwhelming. I would feel like I was trapped in prison, and for what seemed like forever I would stuff things under my bed in an effort to hide them, squeeze drawers shut with crap that needed hidden, and spend the rest of the time gazing out the window hoping to catch glimpses of the neighbors riding their horses down the road. I preach these days about procrastination being the thief of time but do you think I take my own advice? I don’t fucking thing so!
I know an organized life is a more peaceful life, and having your surroundings in order allows you to enjoy every day free from stress and clutter but still, I roam the planet with my head disappearing up my own arse on a daily basis. The irony is that I would be the most disorgainsed, organised person you are ever likely to meet. I make a living out of putting systems in place for businesses to grow and thrive but can’t bring myself to put things back where I got them from or do the same thing twice. In my mind, that would be creating a habit and I wouldn’t want to be bogged down with a habit – especially if it was one that could enhance my life, would I?
You see, on reflection, I have spent a whole lot of my life craving freedom whilst doing the right thing so I hate rules. In my mind, a rule breaker is very different to a lawbreaker and I am definitely not comfortable with anyone who does the latter, but in my personal life its game on. I prefer to call it being spontaneous, but deep down the sense of freedom, I feel being the author of my own misfortune these days is glorious. I’ve always dropped things at my arse - I'm always on a mission to get somewhere else and onto the next thing. I think it is because I was really a queen in a previous life and had a lot of servants. The servants are long gone these days but the habit remains, and I am forever losing things and waste so much time going over old ground looking for stuff.
I invested in a few of those electronic tracker tags a while back to attach to things like my car keys. They were great in the beginning when I could ring the keys from my phone, and they would respond loudly if they were in the vicinity. They work well if you keep the batteries up to them but tell me who has time to keep checking that?
The hurricane that is in the house sometimes gets over to the shed and what a disaster I have had there this week. Bob Marley the Shetland pony that lives on the property has been giving me a dose of my own medicine this week. I have owned that hairy prick for nine years now, (twice as long as my first husband and half as long as the second!) and he continues to be a reminder of the mayhem disorder and chaos can bring to one's life.
He doesn’t like rules either. He doesn’t like much except himself to be truthful and it seems to be his sole purpose in life to remind me to get my shit together. He got out of his paddock last week and got into the area where I store the food for the horses. Oh, he had moved on by the time daylight broke but he had managed to empty half a 5kg bucket of molasses and eat about 50 bucks worth of peavine chaff and low GI food! At 10 hands high he could hardly see into the freezer where it had been safely stored but had managed to lift the lid with his poking nose and eaten down as far as he could. I was furious with him and brown hair that was stuck to the freezer was a dead giveaway.
He hates Marge Simpson and Ginger Rodgers, those two Kune Kune pigs I have with a passion and they live in the small paddock that used to belong to him before their arrival. As I headed off to work I put him in there hoping to contain him until I got back that evening. He was only in there a few minutes when I heard the pigs squealing loudly. He was chasing them furiously and trying to front foot them. Ginger Rodgers is so fat that she was a bit slow off the mark and he managed to actually strike her in his frenzy. I dropped things and ran to their rescue. The clock was ticking as I needed to get going and in my haste, I let them out of the paddock to roam around the stable block in safety.
Those girls are like a couple of watchdogs, and when I returned home that night as they raced over to the gate to meet me, and I breathed a sigh of relief that they had managed to stay put for the day. It was only when I entered the tack room that night and discovered chaff all over the floor that I realised that they had been on tour themselves. They are like me and love their freedom and I hadn’t pulled the door shut properly much to their delight. There was chaff from arsehole to breakfast time all over the tack room floor where those pair had been fossicking about having a great old time.
I’m making a conscious effort to slow down and be more organised in my private life from this week. I intend closing gates behind me, hanging up my keys, and finishing jobs I start. I worked tirelessly on Sunday to “Bob proof” the stable kitchen. I built a new bench and wall in to close it off and measured up for a gate to close the area off completely. I spent the day looking for electric fence faults and was so proud of myself at the end of the day to be able to erect a temporary fence around the area knowing that it was giving out 8.2k of power. I accidentally got a boot off it so can tell you that my shoulder blades ached for a few hours afterward so I know its working.
It's not working well enough apparently? That brown little bastard has escaped overnight and in the dark this morning I caught him back in the kitchen – inside the electric fence and standing on the wash pad looking out. He knew he shouldn’t have been there but I think he may have got a bit of a belt on the way in so was reluctant to leave. That did not stop him having a great old time when he was in there though, as the empty feed bin attests to.
He’s in jail now – for the week because I am so bloody furious with him. I’m off to buy a padlock today and chase up the gate manufacturer as I can't stand it, particularly given my efforts to tidy my act up.
They say things are sent to test us – I’m failing this test miserably despite my best efforts…..
