What a Few Bad Days Means

"You know what my problem with you is," Cox said to me as we sat on our horses in the working arena. All I had said to him moments before, "I'm not sure I can school my horse and handle the remote at the same time." 

Cox had been on me (talked to me a couple of times) about taking over flag duties and doing it myself (moving the flag back and forth with a hand remote instead of someone else operating it for you). I had never done it before, and I didn't want to screw up my horse, fucking up the remote and sending the flag all over the place where the horse can't keep up.

Oh god, I thought. 

"You have all these insecurities that you need to work through," Cox starts, and he continues, "You need to learn to go outside of your comfort zone." 

Eventually, the conversation turns on him, Cox explains that he's having a few "bad days" and I'm witnessing it. Everyday, he told me, "can't be all lovey-dovey." 

My only response to this onslaught was, "you're blunt." That just seemed to make him more angry. I tried to expound to him that I trying to be respectful to him always. His best retort was, "You've been blunt with me." (I don't remember me ever attacking him personally.)

The truth of it is: I am insecure about my riding abilities and in my personal life (thank you, Cox!), and also need to push against my boundaries and learn to dance out of my comfort zones (thank you, Therapist and Cox!). He's not lying. He has a point. But it's not his place to be criticizing me personally when none of it has anything to do with cleaning the stalls or loping the horses. Those are my two jobs and I do them well. He had to attack me on a personal level to find anything wrong with me since I complete my tasks with pride and dedication. 

Somehow it was decided that I wouldn't clean stalls on Saturday, but instead would go to the club cutting about two hours away in order to help. I wake up early, drive there, and show up for the first class, the Open. I cool out one of the horses, and when I find myself free of tasks to do, even after asking his girlfriend if she needs any help, I go to Cox. He's by the show arena, but not in it. "Do you need any help?" I ask him. 

"I'm not the person to ask that today," he says gruffly, laced with irritation.

I figured he would have been in a better mood since he won one of his class, and continued to do well throughout the horse show.  

I find some small chores to do, but after a while, it's obvious that everyone could live without me, and I tell the girlfriend that I'm headed home. I ask if she would like me to clean stalls since they will be super dirty, having skipped being cleaned on Saturday. She surprised me by saying yes, and so, on Mother's Day, I cleaned stalls.