Just Wow….
Please read the addendum for the update on this post. Finally not a moan or a groan! Go figure! Maybe there’s hope for me yet!
Hey Mum,
What a turn of events I’ve had this weekend. I finally found a nice house to buy in Portugal and put an offer in on it Friday. Very excited….only to have one of the worst riding lessons I have ever had in my life. Yes, I’m still riding and have three beautiful horses, did I already mention that? So, my London Socialite status has turned more into Portuguese Farm Girl status for now. Or NOT. On Saturday, I, again, was excluded from the day’s activities at the Farm…not a big deal you say? I’m a client, I say! It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but time after time after time, it just gets on my nerves. My trainer has always had one toe in my camp and two feet minus a toe in the owner of the Quinta’s camp. That’s not a good place to be if you’re in my shoes. So, my mental breakdown of my lesson turned into ‘You’d better treat me like a client or else.’ As any good socialite would have it and well, here that doesn’t work. It should, but it doesn’t and he quit last night. What? He quit, yes, that’s right. He quit. His reason for said quitting was, and I quote, “I am NOT GOOD ENOUGH, and feel not capable to carry on with both her and your training. Sorry to disappoint you.” Not good enough. Hmmmm….let’s see….you are a Grand Prix rider and have ridden in international competitions and train a large national team in Working Equitation but you are not good enough to train my six-year-old horse. I think not. I think the reality is, your girlfriend doesn’t like me, the owner of the farm doesn’t like me and you can’t take them telling you to get rid of me anymore and you can’t take my strops when I have a bad lesson. Fair enough, you have to take care of yourself, says the person who’s been having the shit kicked out of her for six months for the sake of keeping the peace here. Well, I didn’t keep the peace after that message. I marched, in total Socialite fashion, into the kitchen of the hotel and called the owner outdoors for a chat. I finally got to tell her that treating me like a piece of dirt on the bottom of your shoe is not how you treat a client, that going out of your way to make someone feel like they are invisible and are a paying client, is not acceptable and that she is partly responsible for causing him to quit…leaving him without a chance to get back to competing a horse that has the potential to go the distance and I hope that she’s proud of that. What happened next you say?? Well, unfortunately she just laughed in my face, in total bitch fashion and walked into the kitchen and said I was crazy. Okay, fair point. Who wouldn’t be crazy after living in a place where they treat you like a leper on a daily basis, ignored, slowly ground down to the ground. The drip, drip, drip of the Chinese water torture slowly making you do things and say things that you never thought you would or could.
The loneliness that I’ve felt over the last five months peaking with the words, I can no longer train you or your horse and send me spiralling into a despair like I haven’t had since my husband walked out on my family. Yes, it was THAT low…it was being abandoned all over again. A repetitive story in my story line. It is ME! It can’t be everyone else. I accept my faults, hell, I embrace them, but only some people can also embrace them. These people cannot. They rejected my moody cow behaviour in a spectacular way. Kick me out and off the farm, with my two cats and one horse in the middle of Portugal, in the middle of a house purchase, with no place to go TODAY. RIGHT NOW. I need time…it took me two months of planning to come here and they want me out in two weeks. It is not possible…simply not possible.
But I tried to do my mindfulness training this morning, nonetheless, after all, I need my sanity, I need my SELF and I need to be in the present, forget yesterday and think about the list of things to do today. I hate it. I know you told me never use the word hate, but I HATE it! I had a plan. A beautiful, wonderful plan. Buy a house, the house I can afford, the house I want, train with a good trainer whom I have respected for over six years, and rent the house out to holiday goers when I’m back in England living the other half of my life.
Where did I go wrong? Were my expectations too high? Was it leaving the job she gave me which paid me approximately 50 cents per hour? Was it my insistence on having working internet? Was it the complaining that I’m always excluded from playing with others? I did demand that I have working internet, I admit that…I’ve got that now. The pathetic 0.67 mbps speed that still doesn’t allow me to have much interaction with the outside world, but it’s enough. I did try to demand to play with others but that never happened. They still thwarted my demands. I did insist on riding my horse and I still wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy….and that, my friends, is why my trainer quit. I wasn’t happy. Everybody HAD to know about it and I once again pushed them out of my life and left myself in an impossible situation to solve in a short time. My cats even know it. They stayed up all night last night crying, which of course, led to me staying up all night crying and on and on it goes. Let’s not get into the prostitutes and my former husband right now, I only want to focus on today. Okay, maybe I want to say why do I keep making bad choices? Why can’t I stop being that socialite that had everything and still demands to have everything? I just can’t let it go. I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m alone. I’m in Portugal, buying a house, with no reason to be here anymore.
Time to get off the sofa, start packing and get back to the phone calls. Move the cats back to England tomorrow or Wednesday? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t even know me anymore. Life has changed me and made me into a monster that I’m not too keen on. But, what can I do. I try so hard to change it, suck it up, smile when I want to scream, scream when I should walk away, walk away when I should listen. I’m never going to change and I’m not going to get better. My former husband has damaged me too much. He’s made me distrustful, bitter, demanding, a right bitch. I’m really not okay with that. But, it is who I am. I’ll be lonely no matter where I am…I may as well be lonely in Portugal in my house by myself than anywhere where I need to try to be a better person.
Gotta run now, mum. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, again. I’m sorry I am not the person I once was. I don’t know if she’s still in there, but if I see her, I’ll let you know and say hello for you.
Oh, and on top of everything Trump is meeting with Kim Jong-un, he’s the Supreme Leader of North Korea…that may be an even bigger shit show than the one I’m living, but that remains to be seen. Maybe he can keep his temper in check better than this girl.
Love you.
Addendum to My Original Post!
Just an update on this as of today, the 27th of November. The reality is, this was the BEST thing that could have happened to me with regard to training and getting out of the toxic environment that I was in. The baby has improved exponentially in the right hands and he was absolutely correct when he said he wasn’t capable of training her. He is an excellent ‘equitation’ rider and trainer, but dressage is not really his thing. So, despite my feelings on the situation and how it was handled, I am grateful for the fact that he sent us away.
*Image: Getty; Camera Press
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