It’s Saturday. It’s raining. And I’m not gonna complain about it. I am grateful for it. We need it.
I have a full weekend ahead of me… nothing indulgent, just work. A few horse farms. A handful of dogs whose people are away. And my own animals, steady and waiting, as always.
The past week has been spent running the business, working on taxes (I LOVE my new CPA by the way!!), and clearing things out. Not just physically, but also emotionally. The weather has felt like a tease - too warm, too early - and in that, I caught the spring-cleaning bug.
I love going into Spring with a clean barn, so I went through the barn piece by piece. Counted hay bales. Opened bins I hadn’t touched in years. Put tools where they belonged instead of where they’d landed in moments of urgency. That’s how disorder happens. Not from carelessness, but from survival. You come in from fixing a fence, repairing the mower, or handling a hundred other unplanned farm emergencies, drop what’s in your hands, and promise yourself you’ll deal with it later. Later becomes months. In this case, it turned into years.
Somewhere in all of that, I lost a T-post driver. Every farm has at least one. I used to have two. I vaguely remember loaning one out (no idea who), and I kept thinking the other one would reappear eventually, unearthed by time or accident. I even hoped cleaning out the barn might uncover it. It didn’t. And I need to move a fenceline before spring, while things are still dormant. Spring doesn’t wait for lost tools to be found. It’s time to stop expecting what’s gone to return and accept the cost of replacing it. I probably spend most of my money each year at tractor supply.
In the middle of all this sorting and organizing, I found a few things I’d deliberately placed in the barn… Not wanting to keep them too close because I needed to close those chapters, but also not ready to let them go. Objects held in limbo because I didn’t yet know where they needed to go.
There were documents from the federal lawsuit. Heavy with history and validation. But the truth is, that story no longer needs to be in paper form. It lives in public record now, archived and easily accessible. No reason to keep hard proof of it.
Then there was a box from the last twenty-five years. Notes. Papers. Cards. Reminders I’d kept as insurance, just in case I ever doubted myself. Proof that leaving that relationship was necessary.
I don’t doubt anymore, and I don’t need objects and reminders that exist only to pull me backward. I lived that life. I remember it well. I don’t need the relics.
So I loaded Black Pearl with the things headed for the dump, carried the boxes of papers to the fire pit, and burned them quietly. No witnesses. Just a ceremonial cleansing. Fire doing what it’s always done best - reducing weight to ash.
Some things don’t need to be forgiven or understood.
They just need to be finished. Letting go in that way with marked finality, was exactly what I needed.
The last five years were a struggle. A constant proving - at work, in love, in my own standards. A balancing act in the aftermath of a decades-long relationship that died slowly and loudly at the same time. I know it’s February, but it’s still early in the year and burning what’s not meant to be carried forward feels right. Necessary. I’m done holding the proof, apologies, and weight that does nothing but weigh me down.
The true process of liberation comes next…
xo
-s
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