I can’t believe it has been over a month since I have posted a blog. It feels good to sit down and write another entry … and yet, I have been so insanely busy that I haven’t had a moment to even think about the blog, much less write it. Let me tell you what has happened in my life this past month …

My last entry showed you a photo of the used (but new to us) horse trailer my husband and I recently purchased. We traveled to Indiana to retrieve the trailer. Ten minutes after leaving the trailer lot, we stopped to get gas, and being unfamiliar with the (non-existent) turning radius of the trailer, my husband clipped a post next to the gas pump. One pole of the trailer awning was damaged, and we duct taped it on the way home.

I forgot to mention that the week prior to retrieving the trailer, a deer jumped out in front of my husband and he hit it with the less-than-a-week-old truck. We had the truck repaired.

OK, so we get the trailer home and somehow manage to park it in front of our barn. The thing is heavy and long and a totally different driving experience. The next day I take it to a local trailer place for repairs. It stays there for over a week. In the meantime, we find a third horse to buy, and bring him home in our old two-horse trailer.

A week later this new horse fails the pre-purchase exam we had arranged using my equine vet, and we make arrangements to return him to the buyer, since our purchase of him was contingent on him passing the exam.

I had been scrambling to prepare horses, riders and trailer for an organized trail ride benefitting children with cerebral palsy. When the newly purchased horse needed to be returned, we were once again “down” a horse. I hadn’t put shoes on my old Arab, thinking I wouldn’t need to take him, but it appeared he’d have to go. I started my Internet searching for another horse, and made preliminary inquiries on about a dozen possibilities.

Quite unexpectedly, another suitable horse was found not far from our home, and arrangements were made to return horse #1 and retrieve horse #2 all in the same day … and at this point, it was two days before Beth and I had planned to leave for the ride.

I managed to drop horse #1 off without incident, but while I was making a huge wide circle in the gravel parking lot in front of the barn that contained horse #2, I wasn’t so fortunate. Although the truck and trailer were only at about a 110-degree angle, it was still tight enough that the gooseneck trailer dented the truck next to the back window and broke the rear cab window. I drove home with the heat blasting and rear-window air conditioning …

I dropped the truck off at the Chevy dealer that afternoon and pleaded with them to fix it ASAP. Over the next two days, I cleaned the trailer from top to bottom. I started packing the trailer for our trip. I retrieved the truck at 3 PM on the day we had planned to leave (we had moved back our plans until the following morning) and immediately went home, hooked up the trailer, and headed once again for the trailer repair place. The plan was to put an extender on the gooseneck of the trailer and get it 9 inches farther away from the truck cab. I waited while the work was completed and left about 5 PM. Before getting the trailer home, the now-lower (but farther back!!!) gooseneck housing managed to dent one side wall of the truck when the truck and trailer were not on virtually even ground. I was back at the trailer place the first thing the next morning.

At that point it was decided that the steel gusset of the trailer was so bulky and designed to be so close to the truck bed that we were not likely to be able to avoid future problems … so we traded that trailer in and started all over again. Of course, we had been hemorrhaging money at this point, with truck repairs, trailer repairs, horse returns, etc. This was SUPPOSED to be my recreation.

We didn’t go on the trip. It turns out it rained and was cold and the day everyone left, folks were getting stuck in the mud … I would have been a basket case trying to pull our rig out. The weekend we were supposed to be on the ride, Beth had a cold and I had the stomach flu … not to mention that I was totally wiped out from the whole debacle.

Last weekend I traveled to New England and presented workshops all day on Saturday. During all the running around and stress with the trailer, I was trying to prepare workshops and handouts for the conference. Throw in some out-of-town company, horses that got into grain and had to be dosed with mineral oil to prevent colic and founder (more $$ of course!!) and a few thousand other minor details … and it is a darn good thing I wasn’t trying to blog as well.

As of this moment, we have no trailer. However, we are in the process of getting a different type that has a much more user-friendly gooseneck hitch.

I took the hint that my life is a bit too full right now to be able to devote the time and energy necessary to continue writing this blog, so I am sorry to say I am bidding you a final farewell. I am desperately trying to recapture some R & R in my life, and once we get all the bugs worked out, we are going to spend weekends camping and riding the trails in our regional area.

I have no plans to blog anywhere else, but instead will devote more time to the Attachment & Trauma Network. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog and getting to know many of you. Your comments were always greatly appreciated. I enjoyed the lively debates that occasionally occurred. I wish the subject matter could have been more upbeat more often … but I wrote what I was feeling and experiencing. I never claimed to have all the answers, or even to know all the questions. I was and am muddling through, just like all of you.

In a recent conversation with Ken Huey who is also an adult adoptee and the CEO of a residential treatment facility, Ken said studies have shown that the single most important factor in whether or not therapy succeeds or doesn’t succeed is the therapist’s investment in the relationship. This was true regardless of the type of therapy used. Ken extrapolated this finding to parenting as well. He told me that while my intensity and expectations were on the high end of the parenting spectrum, so was the degree of my investment in my relationships with my kids. In observing me with my children, Ken said it was clear that my kids knew how highly valued and loved they were and that I expected much of them because I wanted much for them.

When my husband and I purchased the first horse trailer, there was so much that we didn’t know. We really wish the folks who sold us that first trailer had done more to prepare us and make sure we had what we needed to be successful (like the extender for the gooseneck and maybe even a different trailer entirely …) It would have been nice to have them delineate our possible pitfalls. We learned many things the hard way. My husband likened it to our experiences adopting.

However, we anticipate that this too, shall pass. Our memories of all these tough times, while they may never entirely disappear, will hopefully be replaced with better experiences. This has been the case in our adoption journey. I wish the same for you.

Please don’t make your journey alone. Seek out other parents for support. Come see us at ATN. God bless.