The Discontented Pony

I’ve moved around quite a bit and I don’t have very many things from my childhood. I’ve managed to hold onto a couple of my favorite books. One of them is called The Discontented Pony. It’s a story about Merrylegs who was a little pony who was unhappy with her life in the pasture. She wanted to be a painted pony on the carousel at the fair so she escaped. What she found out was that all that is painted and shiny is not always as magical as it may appear. I read that book over and over again but my little mind couldn’t seem to figure out what the word ‘discontented’ meant. I hated, feared, and loved that book.


My granddaddy was a tobacco farmer in North Carolina and I worshipped that man. He loved me like the sun rose and set on my head. We’d walk through his cow pasture together and he’d talk to me. I didn’t like the cow pies and I was always worried about stepping on them. He laughed at me and he said that a man can’t walk a straight line through the pasture without getting some on his shoes. I told him that was just silly and asked him why someone would want to walk a straight line though there. I found out later. I know now what he meant. Most people don’t do it. They can’t do it for whatever reason. Most of us who walk the line do so with varying levels of success. Walking the straight line is hard and a lot of times you don’t just get shit on your shoes. Some people actually get dead over it. I didn't know about such things then. I was just a little girl.


I also remember a story my grandfather liked to tell me about a cow who wasn’t happy in her pasture. The cow was just like the that little pony. The details of my grandfather’s story varied but it was always the same basic lesson. She wasn’t happy with what she had so she broke free and she got herself into a mess. She would get tangled up in briars and maybe even hurt her leg. Now, when I look back I know that he knew me as if he were looking right into my soul. I was always discontented. I always felt like something was wrong with me or with the world which I was a witness to.

As it turned out I could not stay in that pasture. I’ve always been that way. I have to see what’s on the other side of that fence. In the past, I would head straight for the worst mess I could find. I continue to leave the pasture but there’s a marked difference in how I go these days. I’m keen to the brambles and the ditches so how I go now is I scout myself a path. I hone in on it. It’s still a monumental struggle to balance instinct with logic. It is my guess that this function is what makes human beings human.   

Not long before my thirteenth birthday death came calling for my granddaddy out of the clear blue. There was no sickness and no warning. That was it for me. That set me on a course of hell bent self destruction which I was already on if truth telling is my strong suit on this day. His death was like throwing gasoline onto a fire. My desire for payback didn’t settle for years. I had compulsions of every sort. The last one I was able to do something about besides cigarettes and modern day devices was rage. I nursed rage and I got off on it like it was a drug. Luckily, I found out that it was unresolved grief that fired my rage. This I know intellectually. As of yet grief still likes to beat me to within an inch of my life. Grief is the worst bitch who roams. I don’t have a problem with anger these days as long as it’s well placed and measured unlike the rage of old. My old brand was more like some kind of shotgun blast that eats and distorts everything it touches.   

Later, they told me I had mental illness which is fucking hilarious. They made up a name for it too. They call it bipolar disorder. Yeah, thanks. I am ashamed to admit that I loved that crazy card for a long time. At first, I didn’t know anyone else who had it. Now it appears that if you’d like to get yourself a case of it they are passing them out at the psychiatry office. I remember actually being offended when every third person I ran into said they had the same. Everyone had some and they were damn proud to tell you about. The drug companies jerked themselves off with glee and let the public think that there was such a thing as a chemical imbalance in the brain. If it were only so simple.   

I do know that I was very fortunate and that there were intervening forces at work on my behalf. I was able to come to terms with a lot of my human flaws that were causing me a ton of self inflicted misery. They say that in this life pain is inevitable but misery is optional. 

They say a lot of stuff. I guess that’s where faith comes in. My grandfather had faith in me. I had faith in him. People come up with all kinds of theories about what love is. I’ll never figure it out to my satisfaction if I’m lucky. Still, I think that faith in another person while they have the same faith in you may be a pretty damn good guess. 

Furthermore, it is my determination that discontentment is good in it’s own way. Nothing happens without it. It can be very destructive but it’s a gift. After all, who would do a damn thing about anything if they weren’t discontented about something.