I'm Only Me When I'm With You

Friday night beneath the stars,
in a field behind your yard,
you and I are paintin' pictures in the sky.
And sometimes we don't say a thing;
just listen to the crickets sing.
Everything I need is right here by my side.
And I know everything about you
I don't wanna live without you.

I'm only up when you're not down.
Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground.
It's like no matter what I do.
Well you drive me crazy half the time;
the other half I'm only trying to let you know that what I feel is true.
And I'm only me when I'm with you.

Just a small town boy and girl
livin' in a crazy world.
Tryin' to figure out what is and isn't true.
And I don't try to hide my tears.
The secrets are my deepest fears.
Through it all nobody gets me like you do.
And you know everything about me.
You say you can't live without me.

I'm only up when you're not down.
Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground.
It's like no matter what I do.
Well you drive me crazy half the time;
the other half I'm only trying to let you know that what I feel is true.
And I'm only me when I'm with you.

When I'm with anybody else it's so hard to be myself.
Only you can tell.

That I'm only up when you're not down.
Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground.
It's like no matter what I do.
Well you drive me crazy half the time;
the other half I'm only trying to let you know that what I feel is true.
And I'm only me
Who I wanna be
Well, I'm only me when I'm with you

Ok, sappy time is over. This song was just on, and I realized how true it rang for me. Today was amazing. I didn't get on, but that's ok. Seems fate is doing everything in it's power to stop me from getting on her. I'm getting frustrated. Let's start at the beginning. I gave her some hay first, so she could nibble while I groomed her. She does better that way. She relaxes. Everything went great. Got a good picture of her. Well, good for her anyways. She takes such craptastic pictures.

I groomed her really good, brushed out her mane, and her tail. She did try to threaten me, she raised her back foot in warning when I was brushing her tail, but a quick pop on the butt from the brush let her know I would have none of that. :D She understood, and finished standing quietly. Then came the big scary saddle. As you can see from the above picture, it wasn't that bad. She didn't mind AT ALL! I was so proud of her. And the last time we tried the saddle thing, it was uncomfortable, the girth was too tight. I bought girth extensions. On goes the girth extensions. On goes the saddle. Tighten the girth. DAMMIT, the girth strap broke. WTF? Can ANYTHING else get in the way? My knee was killing me, but I was fighting through it, because today was the day.

So that wasn't going to happen. I was debating taking off the saddle, and heaving myself up there bareback, but then logic kicked in. It wouldn't be smart to do that when nobody is home. The guy next door was helping Richard with the third trailer down from us, but I bet they would be the type to just watch, and not help if something went wrong. Anyway, she was standing good nibbling her hay, not really caring there was a saddle on her back. I pulled on the saddle, leaned on the stirrups, leaned across the saddle as best I could. She didn't bat an eye. So I tossed on the bridle, and we walked around her stall a few times. I'm sure we looked retarded, but I don't care. I love having my horses at my house. I don't have to really worry about people thinking I am doing things wrong, or not doing things the right way, or making an ass of myself. Dream doesn't care how stupid we look, and here, that's all that matters.

After we walked around a few times, I let her get a few more bites to eat. She was being so laid back, so chilled out. I got a great idea. I unsaddled her, and threw some hay in an old muck bucket. I got everything ready at the other end of her stall, and decided to try a bath. Now, we haven't had the best of experiences with bathes, her and I. They always turn into a fight, and I always threaten to sell her, last bath, I told her she was off to meat packing company. So rotten. :D So, this time, everything was still pretty chilled and laid back. I clipped the lead rope to her halter, and brought her to the other end of her stall. Now by this time, there's a slight wind going. Of course. She hates the wind, I hate the wind. But I made everything seem like it wasn't a big deal. I sprayed her off, and let her eat. Then came the sponge, the scary scary sponge. She let me rub the sponge on her left side, and half of her right side this time. HUGE progress. HUGE! And I got most of her mane shampoo'ed. (hid the shampoo bottle lol!) I also scrubbed between her teats, she seemed to like that. Not with the sponge, she tried to kick me again, so I used my fingers and the hose.

After all this, I rinsed her off. We were almost done getting the soap off, when a huge gust of wind came through. Something in the yard behind us banged really loud. Even Moonie, the unspookable pony, spooked. Dream squealed, and flew backward. Usually when something like this happens, she freaks out and doesn't listen. She doesn't trust me fully yet, and we have had issues with things like this. But she hit the end of the leadrope. I took a few steps with her, talking calmly to her. She stopped, looked at me, dropped her head, and came back to where we were standing. I know, it isn't THAT big of a deal to most people, but for us, this was HUGE! She spooked, which is ok. She can get scared of something. But she came back to me. She listened to me the whole time, and trusted me that everything was ok. It was so amazing. I can't begin to describe it.

Because of this, I finished rinsing her off. I could tell she was getting antsy, and I wanted to end on a good note. I let her roll, get covered in mud, and totally defeat the purpose of the bath. She had fun. I had fun. We made a connection today I think. Before I went out there, I was talking to my friend Carina. She asked me if I was scared to get on her. I told her I wasn't scared of Dream. I know she wouldn't hurt me on purpose, regardless of our issues. I am scared that we won't have a connection. I am scared that we won't work well together. My other OTTB Ricky was a saint. He would do anything I asked him, no questions asked. Dream on the other hand questions everything I do. I know this is a lack of trust, and we are working on that. But I am afraid that we won't have that trust, no matter how hard we work at it. But I don't want that to hold me back, and I think up until today, it was. Today I went out there with the mindset that we will have that connection, we will have that trust. I wonder if that's why everything went so well today. Here in a little while I am going to go out there and try to worm her. She's awful about it. I have an old shirt I am going to have handy as a blindfold. Hopefully I can get her to do it. Usually I use the pour-on, Erva-ease or something like that. But there's something wrong with it, and it's not being sold anymore. Dammit. So tube worming it is. Ugh. Wish me luck with that!

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.