The other day I watched the latest season of Queer Eye and there was a woman who had to tell a horse to go away. It sounds weird now but it made perfect sense because she was in a therapy session with the horse.
At first she had to connect with the horse and pet it but then she had to make a request which was: Go away horsey!
– So she did it. She told the horse to leave her. Not like forever. Just have the horse walk a couple of steps away from her so she could stand in the middle by herself. But the horse did not leave. Because essentially the woman did not want the horse to go.
The equitarian therapist who was watching all this told the woman: Oh I see. You have some detachment issues.
This is where I am right now. I am the woman in the middle of the circle surrounded by horses: unable to tell them to go.
“Why would I want the horse to leave me?”
Exactly.
Somehow I am always surrounded by horses, by things I want to hold close. Scared that if I move an inch it will all crumble and dissipate. Hello micro-managing. Hello over-thinking.
I started to join the midnight-thought-caroussell again, swinging me round and round, imagining things like decorating the flat, the new artist studio I am going to start renting from February on, related to that money issues (can I really afford it?), topics I could write about in the next muse letters, essays and my main on-going crisis with: when will I finish my novel?
It’s not that these thoughts are bad or useless, sometimes they are when I think about money too much, but mostly these are good ideas, all coming up, the horses galloping around me but maybe not at 3 am?
I don’t like to let things go. Like me running after a sunrise I know I probably won’t catch. Life is about timing and a sunrise teaches you that. You can’t will a sunrise to pause, to hold off, to wait a little longer. You either make it to the beach in time or all the bright pink colours will already be gone when you arrive. – I hate that. It stresses me out. It makes me race down the street ignoring the sky for the most part, because I’m so focused to be there enjoying it and now here still running and then grabbing my little dog and carrying him because he is just so slow and stopping every two meters to sniff and then you arrive at the spot where you imagined to be at peace welcoming the sun but in a total pissed mood and unsure: was this the sunrise now? did you get all of it?
Of course there is a sunset and a sunrise every day but some sunrises are better than others and will I ever make it in time for one of the great ones?
“The root cause of desire for control is anxiety. Anxiety causes a person to have a desire for control in their environment as a coping strategy.”