Suicide pony

We had a pony growing up. We lived in the country so it was a thing. I think he came with the house. He did not inspire a child-like adoration for all things equine in me because he hated us. He deceived us. He lured us in with the promise of a sweet ride, a gentle trot around the yard. It was nice when that pony was cooperative. It is the reason people like ponies. But after a few hundred yards, he'd had enough and he'd head straight for the clothes line, hoping to scrape us off his back like mud off a shoe.

Getting on him was flirting with death, but my siblings and I kept getting back on that pony. We'd look in his crazy eyes and talk sweetly, ask him to please be nice. And he'd shake those long locks out of his pony face and allow us to bridle him up, climb on his narrow back and be lulled into complacency before he headed straight for the clothes line again.

In later years, wine became my suicide pony. That was my choice. Maybe you've chosen something else. Oreos, maybe or gambling.  Shopping or smoking. The point is this: Suicide ponies are all the same. We know they're not good for us, but they nuzzle their soft nose into our cheek and we're lulled into believing that this time they'll be nice to us. This time we'll go for a nice little ride around the yard. 

We don't like to say the word addiction because we believe we can stop. Addicts can't stop. But we're different. We look in the mirror and see the woman who we believe we are, not the one we've become. Not the one everyone else sees. You probably don't want to hear that. I don't want to write it, but it's kind of true. One day, instead of looking in the mirror, however fleetingly, I looked at a photograph of myself. Really looked. That was where I started. I saw a woman who could do so much more. I didn't want to be the woman in the picture anymore. But even knowing that, the suicide pony would invite me for a ride and too often I'd climb back on.

This blog is a lot of things, but I'm not sure I want it to be stories about my adventures in drunkeness. If it does come up its because there was a lesson there, one that I hope is valuable to some other woman struggling through midlife. But ultimately, we all have to forge our own path, create our own program. What worked for me might not work for you. If you're reading this, you're probably aware you have a problem, but at the same time, you're hoping you don't. Your call. I learned I liked waking up without the headaches. That it was nice to not have people unfriending me on Facebook for some drunken post the night before. That some of my health problems dissolved when I got off the suicide pony.