Hey, all! I’m Sage (@surge_lactose). This month’s Grief House theme is trust.
This is Copper. She came to R&R New Options Equine when she was four years old.
Her mother died when she was just a little baby and she grew up in a double-wide with over 30 cats. Laura met Copper when she had just come in. She had been kept in a stall for two years straight. She was starved. She was terrified. She was enraged.
I met Copper when she was 16 and I was 17. When I met her she was (and still is) very content with her life.
I was fresh out of rehab- I was angry. I was terrified. I hated myself more than I'd hated anyone before. I was so scared of my life continuing when I had wanted so badly for it to end.
Then I was introduced to Copper. I was skeptical the first time we met one-on-one. I don't remember it well. I remember being so unsure of which horse was which that I would always double-check it was her by feeling for the BB in her shoulder.
Copper saw through my anger and fear. She never took me at face value. She saw the fear in me and said "Yeah, I get it. I remember being scared. I remember being angry. You're safe here." And over time I let down my guard.
The trust we've built is one I've experienced in few other relationships. We keep each other safe. When we ride, she does as I ask under the condition that I listen to what she needs as well. She knows that I will never hurt her on purpose, and I know that she will never hurt me on purpose. She's hurt me on accident, sure, but she's a massive horse with a poor concept of how large she is. I can walk underneath her, climb on her, stand behind her, hang upside-down from her neck. She can come up to me and kiss my hand, check if I have cookies in my pockets, or turn around to have her butt scratched. There is no fear. Neither of us have the patience for fear between us anymore. Being scared is taxing. The trust between us is always such a relief from the regular world of being frightened.