A Change and Reflection

The past few posts I've written, I have been unable to view all of the comments. I get emails from Google/Blogger, which I can read previews of your comments, but when I navigate to the post to reply to the comments, they don't exist. They're somewhere in the netherworld it seems.

That bothered me.

What bothered me more though, was the fact that I'm nearly certain it has something to do with the fact that I moved my comment form to merge with Google + nearly 3 years ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time!

Except it hasn't been.

In order to comment on my blog, you must have a G+ account. Not shocking if you consider the way Google likes to do things. They didn't point that out in the beginning (at least not in the main text of the proposal!) What they did point out was that if you ever wanted to move away from Google + comments you'd LOSE ALL OF THE G+ COMMENTS YOU'D RECEIVED.

That sucks a lot.

But the future of this blog would be a better one with comments that I can interact with again. So I've changed back to the basic format of Blogger comments instead of G+.

The comments of past aren't lost though. Oh no. I went through and took screenshots of the majority of the memorable ones since the change-over to G+, a period of time from April 2013 to the present.

There were so many great discussions, impromptu help forums, congratulations, and things that made me happy to read again.

I've uploaded all of these archived screenshots into a public Flickr album and linked it in the side of this blog in the "PAGES" section. There, you can follow a link to all of the archived comments with the title formatted based on the post: MMDDYYYY-post title.

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Reviewing and re-reading a large period of my life as I took screenshots was really eye opening in the best way possible....

I have come so far. The horses have come so far because of me. So far. Just...wow. And this blog, my posts, and the conversation that resulted from it helped get us (the horses and myself) where we are. Your help and guidance through my ups and downs got me where I am today.

And I really love where I am today.

Both horses have grown up so much in their time with me. I've grown up and improved a lot, too. An obvious, no-brainer side-effect of the whole process.

It was kind of funny to go through and re-read comments where everyone (myself included) was speculating the possibility of some really serious issues with my horses when they'd have their horse outbursts. I really had to laugh. Because time has passed and I know how things ended up and none of our worst case scenarios ever happened. (You're totally shocked, I know. ;-) )

There was a definite flowing theme to things as I read through my adventures from Spring 2013 to the present:

I was happy and ecstatic, yet blundering as I learned new things (most of 2013). I then learned the new things and tried to apply them. I had a good go of it for awhile (2013 into 2014). And then there was a period in my life where an outside influence put me into an almost manic state that manifested in a really horrible way with my horses (2014). In fact, that period of my life led to a complete slacking off from writing on this blog during the last half of 2014. I was really struggling.

Those closest to me through the blog world noticed a change in my writing and reached out to me (thank you). But it wasn't until the beginning of 2015 that I was able to pull myself out of that hole and start anew. As a result, I didn't write too much during 2015. I was nervous that my new resolve, my new happiness, wouldn't become a new normal. And I really wanted it to be my new normal. It was so much like a normal I'd known through my happiest days in college. And so I didn't write too much. I focused on living life and experiencing things in the moment. I wrote and updated on the big things, but largely let the little things slide away.

And now, I'm over a year into that same lifestyle I wanted to keep so badly. There are ups and downs, but the ups are more frequent and the downs don't stress me like they once did. I'm really happy.

I'm so grateful I kept with this blog. I didn't think I would when I started it at the end of 2010. It's proving to be one of my most-favorite-things I've ever done with my life. I love being able to see the changes in myself, my horses, and my life.

I'm going to try to write more into the future, probably not with the manic abandon I once did, but definitely enough to note the best, most memorable happenings month to month.

Thank you to those who have been along for this ride as long as you have -- I've loved learning from you through my high and low moments. You've really helped me become a better horse person and a better human.

I look forward to many continued years of documentation and learning along the way. And(!) to being able to interact through (hopefully) non-glitchy comments!