Feeling Accomplished

Is it possible to have horse trailering PTSD? 

I went for so many years without owning a trailer, so despite my horses trailering well and us going on the odd adventure, trailering them was kind of A Big Thing. 

Despite many fantastic, fun filled adventures that I'm eternally grateful to have been invited along on, I feel like I also had more than my fair share of stressful travels.

Most recently, the borrowed trailer that stranded us far from home (and a tire shop) when it turned out the tires were out of date and prone to randomly exploding.

Prior to that, sucking up lesson and clinic costs when my ride share had a last minute change of plans and didn't go. That time my horses were 36 hours late arriving, with radio silence the whole time. The pro hauler who started not answering my calls the day before she needed was scheduled to pick my horses up from training. That time a friend's horse panicked in the trailer as I was loading mine, knocked her unconscious, and I ended up trying to be on the phone directing 911, keeping an eye on her, and trying to stop traffic to catch a loose horse on the highway, all while holding Bridget. That was fun, and probably not at all what you should do in such a situation.  

Plus, smaller things like needing to be on someone else's schedule and the stress involved with trying to adjust mine with theirs. Add in random vehicle breakdowns, trailers I was nervous about putting the horses in and me generally being a worrier at the best of times, and well, I knew it was going to take a bit before hauling the horses didn't feel like a big deal. 

Remember when my new trailer even had the resident deer interested? :)

Anyway, last night I looked out the window after work, and saw some rare sunshine interrupting our current 'Parade of Storms' (I don't know who the new Environment Canada media people are, but they are fully on board for drama - 'Atmospheric River' being my other favorite forecast from this week).  So it felt pretty freakin' cool to decide spur of the moment to trailer the horses to the ring and get a ride in.

 Better yet, anxiety levels were finally pretty non existent - I keep the trailer packed with everything I need, I know our truck, it's a local drive, and my girls both haul super well. So, I did all the driving myself, despite G being there, ready and able to help. Laugh at me if you want, but it's kind of a big deal for me - I've been practicing with the trailer empty forever and more recently, delaying adding horses to the plan due to a giant twisty hill with a narrow bridge at the bottom that stands between the horses and the club ground across town  :)

Actual bridge - was not worried about it at all until a well meaning friend was like "don't worry about the bridge" :D

Maybe hooking up and trailering my own horses without any pre planning or worry is not your standard big picture accomplishment, but I've been looking forward to it for so many years that it's a huge personal one.