At this very low point, I was despondent and disgusted beyond any hope for awhile .I was exhausted and sleep-deprived. It would have been so easy to just lie down and give up, try to will myself to go out like a light or somehow get in front of a speeding vehicle--by accident, of course. The final back-breaking straw had been losing Little Dusty. Yet in a way that, following Tina's death, set me free. As was once said: What is freedom but nothing left to lose? I was so very close to that point.
April 15, 1996 Friday
Another one now--four weeks since the outfit left and not a line from Dusty. Got up and went down to feed and found Leo sick. I’d like to have died right then. But one cannot choose apparently. They took him to Shauffler’s of course. Charlie Mike did the pasture chores and I watched Lyno who was also ailing. They brought back some shots for her. They refuse to believe me when I say I want to go. I guess they just can’t accept it . I’ll have to keep telling them. So I am a liar, cheat, whore, bad as a Commie... You know what? I couldn’t care less. Yeah, I sold myself for $20; that’s really how it was and I may as well admit it. If he ever writes, I’ll be surprised. I’ve been taken for a fool again, and in about the worst way this time. I am just shit-full of horses, especially sick ones, the Verde Valley and all its inhabitants, and too many other things to list. I promised Dusty I would not kill myself and promised Judy, too. But I can happen to an accident, can’t I? My promises aren’t worth a damn anyway. Especially when they are made under pressure, I might. add Well, I ain’t making any more. That is one sin I’ll quit being guilty of. If you don’t make any promises you can’t very well break them. Had to take Leo back to the vet for tubing and even with that we had to stay up all night with him. Now at 6:45 he seems to be recovering fairly well. Do hope so. The thing that breaks me up is Little Dusty really didn’t have a chance. I’ll admit to erring when I put him back in the pen but I was in a bind and it was the Boss’s surly temper and Mom’s carelessness that put me there. Shauffler was out of town but had my colt been tubed and properly tranquilized I think he’d be alive today. But he was my horse, so… Well I watched the last horse I loved die. Buzzie is okay but she's just another horse. I’ve been criticized so much about how I broke her that she’s about ruined for me. I never broke a horse by myself before--Pat and Ginger were after her--she was the first I did alone. She is gentle and safe; Charlie Mike can ride her and I can do quite a few things with her. She is far from perfect but she is no outlaw or barn sour or anything. I’m really wound up--or unwound...just not sure which. There are so many injustices in this old world. Stop the world and let me OFF!! My stomach is sick. I’ve been sick for two months I think. I dread my next period. If it’s like the last one... something is badly out of order with my system. Well, I don’t give a damn, really. Except I think I’ll just suffer and not die.
This one is awfully bleak. I have been lower a time or two but this was basically a real nadir point in my life. Depression had swallowed me whole and my outlook was so darkened and poisoned by it. The loss of my 'baby' was brutal. He was always special to me, somehow delicate and gentle, rather deer-like in many ways. He really was not fragile but fine boned and seemed little though he was not.. I did see a single backward blessing in knowledge he now would never have to suffer any brutal treatment during training, for some small transgression that would have been inevitable, but my heart was truly broken at the time. He had been gone two days here. I always felt as if he was the last one to be sick but that was not true; several more to include Leo and Lyno followed him and were saved.
Now having lost both Tina and Little Dusty, I might have asked to have Rico or Bravo in replacement but I probably thought I would have been laughed at. Who was I to expect the two I had somehow caused to die should be replaced? I had already spoiled the one horse I had left and made her worthless. She got sick but did not die. How could I expect more? The fact I had trained both Patrick and Ginger and made them fit to be sold had no significance. In some ways they were also supposed to be mine and I did not get a cent from their sales nor a single word of praise for my efforts.
As for my dismal assessment of the situation with Dusty --the big one--and myself, it was strictly an echo of the slurs and ugly, brutal things I had been hearing. Yes, I was a filthy tramp and an immoral piece of shit. Of course no one could possibly love me and my 'love' was a cheating lecher, anyway. Ye Gods, but I was bitter and broken right then. I did hear from him early in May and learned he had been sick for weeks, probably walking pneumonia which with his asthma was potentially very bad. He was worried about being take out of service (forced medically to at least take a leave of absence). No wonder he had not written.
By the next week I had pulled myself a few yards up out of the hole. Life did go on and was mostly almost tolerable. It had taken a colossal effort, but we had pulled the herd through the crisis and slowly things went back to 'normal' as much as they could approach that status.
Photos: I have posted Little Dusty before-- I can't bear to do it again now. I had no new pictures of Big Dusty at this time either. I think I will simply grab one I stole off line some time ago. It surely fits the mood! I present the Goddess of Depression...
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