Equine Excrement

There is something oddly comforting about mucking out a barn. Mags and I have been house sitting for my folks this week, so that means twice a day I grab a barn rake and head out to take care of the horses. It’s a nasty, smelly job, particularly if Sugar, the mare, decides that she is upset about something and kicks the piles all over her stall. Still, there’s nothing particularly mentally or physically challenging about it, and it’s easy to fall into a rhythm. While the body is working, it gives the mind time to think.

This week it has given me plenty of time to think about my current difficulties with Mags, and what my part in our little drama has been. Last night, while I was doing the evening clean out after picking hooves, I had a disturbing, but relevant thought. I feel as if my life has fallen into a rut, and I’m desperate to get out of it.

It’s not like there’s anything going particularly wrong, in fact life is better than it has been in a long time, but it’s gotten predictable and a little boring. Weekdays, I get up at o weird thirty and get ready for work, by 7, I’m sitting at my desk, taking calls from people pissed off that their air conditioning isn’t working. (Soon, it’ll be taking calls from people whose heat isn’t working. Compared to the people without heat, people without air conditioning are at best mildly annoyed.) This continues until about three to three thirty, then it’s back home to feed the kids, make dinner, eat and then fiddle for an hour or two before its time to go to bed and get up to do it all over again.

There’s absolutely nothing objectionable about this (other than the o weird thirty part,) but it seems to be chaffing. I’ve been having trouble concentrating enough to read coherently, and even the computer games that I used to love have seemed pointless of late. In short, I feel as if I’ve slipped into a routine that is numbing my mind. A sick little part of me misses the dread of dealing with the next upcoming crisis, and the rush when the crisis was successfully dealt with.

I’m a little young, but is it possible I’m having a midlife crisis? If so, does this mean I get to by a flashy, totally inappropriate sports car and try to pick up women half my age? (This is no longer the instant ticket to jail that it once was, a truly frightening thought.)

This week has had a break to the routine, between house sitting and picking up Nib’s kids after school, things have been shaken up a little. I actually find myself looking forward to rushing out to get the boys from school after work. (They’re great boys, and now that we’ve gotten over the initial jitters, the half an hour of conversation that we have on the ride home is truly priceless.) I even find myself looking forward to dealing with the barn twice a day.

More data, I need to process it. I’ve been getting so much lately that I’m close to the point of overload. I’ll need to find some time this weekend to be by myself and try to digest everything.