Day 19: Come for the bad day special, stay for the Mr. Rogers message.

Significant moment of the day: getting a tractor stuck in the middle of a field, having to detangle christmas lights first from a horse's mouth and then from its tail while it runs around me frantic, trying to get three horses to play nice while avoiding being trampled, almost breaking a stall door and realizing I could've had it worse.

Yea. My work day WAS GREAT. A typical work day at the barn is usually 3.5 hours in the winter. Today? 5.5 hours. Although not as significant as the above events, we should also include spending a half hour coaxing a horse out of her stall, and 10 minutes trying to get a horse back into his stall at the end of the day and generally trying to accomplish all of these while it was raining. ALSO to be included in the day? My car (Dr. Paul) deciding to take a sick day. To sum up, today finished up try-to-survive-take-a-scalding-shower-get-into-sweats-grab-a-book-and-a-glass-of-wine significant moment.

Opinion of the day: don't sweat the small stuff or you'll become a sponge.

Despite the woe is me nature of this post which is pretty much just me venting my frustration, I want to try and keep things in perspective. Yes, there were several times within these mishaps I was almost crying. When I finally finished the day, and I got in the car, (which i borrowed from my parents) I considered crying. But tears didn't come to me. Why? Because I didn't need them. As bad as the day was, it could've been ten times worse. I could've broken my leg, been trampled to death (not gonna lie it was a possibility a couple times) or one of the horses (there are 6 by the way) could've been hurt. While crying tends to be a go-to when frustration arises, I realized today that there really is no use crying out of frustration after the moment passes. In the moment? Maybe. Sometimes it helps. But after you say goodbye to the day? How does it help?

Mr Rogers is gonna take it home, guys. 

Consider it like this. When you cut an onion and it causes your eyes to tear up, its frustrating, yes? But once the onion is cut, the tears are dried and the pain is gone... does it still make sense to cry? No.

I realized it was the same for the chain of events that happened. When the day was done, I felt tired, frustrated and crabby. But not sad. I managed to free the tractor from the field's snowy death grip/the brake I had neglected to take off,  I coaxed the stubborn horse from the stall, dodged out of the way when the other horse eventually decided to enter his stall at breakneck speed, and overall I managed to keep all the horses safe. Had I been crying or upset during these mishaps, things could've gone much worse. To be fair, I had been extremely panicky when the horse got caught in the lights, but then something in me snapped and I realized that ONE of us had to stay calm. So I stepped it up.

Anyways, that was what I learned today. Instead of crying, I blasted the radio (it was nice because the speakers aren't busted like in Dr. Paul), and sang at the top of my lungs. I took that hot shower, i got in comfy clothes and read for the rest of the night with chocolate and wine. Somehow I feel this was the better option that a stuffy noise, red eyes, kleenex and a lost cause for tears.