Christmas Day my husband and I settled in with big fluffy flakes falling outside and after a day full of Christmas themed movies, my husband found the latest release on Showtime and turned it on. I immediately cuddled into my soft blanket and jammies, saw what it was and promptly begged him to turn it to Christmas movies again. I really didn't want to watch this movie. I really wanted to try to stay in a happy mood. I begged him to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation for the twentieth time that day. No, it wasn't an action movie or the latest sci-fi movie. It was the movie "War Horse". Strange? No, I don't have anything against animals. I love them. I adore. I actually prefer animals to people, minus my family and few close friends. A very few. So why was I so unwilling to watch the movie? Because, because I knew of what I would have to go through. And because I am already so tired.
I hate seeing animals or children in pain. I abhor it. Even though it's a movie. Even though, as my husband argues, 'you know it will have a happy ending'. I hate it because it's all too real. I hate it because I feel enough pain to last me a lifetime. I hate it because I'm already in enough pain, I don't need to see others in pain and not be able to help them either. I'm in so much pain. So much pain that I'm drowning in it. Suffocating in it. Dying from it little by little, day by day. And I don't need to have something else where I can't help the pain, can't help change the course. Can't help make it better. Only sit and watch. Be passive. Be along for the ride.
My husband sat with the remote and tried to cajole me into good spirits as we watched the movie move along and WWII loomed in front of us. As I flinched and tears continued to fill my eyes, he reminded me that this film had accolades galore and that, again, it would have a happy outcome. I nodded and tried to keep passive attention while chanting in my head "this will have a happy ending, this will have a happy ending" but it was having little help with the tears in my eyes and the pounding in my chest.
I finally reached the limit and grabbed the remote out my husbands hands when I could no longer separate myself from the horse. The enemy forces were moving in and the troops were retreating quickly. In effort to let the horse have a chance at freedom, to get out of the living hell, the soldier unharness the horse and tells him to run free, to get the hell out of there. But then a giant hulking tank lumbers onto the scene and the horse starts to get boxed in. There are the giant earth mounds that are making barriers from the horse running free. He is finally able to vault up and over the tank but then as he bolts and run, he hits the saw horses and miles and miles and barbed wire and gets tangled in and he tries to run but finally gets so caught up that he gets thrown back onto his back and is trapped and entangled.
My chest constricted, hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I just knew that in my last life, I was that horse. You know those questions that you get asked in magazine quizes and when you were a kid "if you could be any animal, what would it be", well, in my past life, I was a war horse. I was on that hellish battlefield. I was part of the pair of horses dragging that damn munitions around. I just don't know if I'm the horse that makes it miraculously out of the war alive to live out their days in the tranquil pastures and find life again in peace. Or if I'm the horse that just can't make it. The horse with the ankle that just can't be fixed, that just isn't right, that finally is too far gone and finally dies on the field of battle. Leaving behind their beloved. Their partner.
So back to the happy holiday movie we went. And that helped. But not when it was the wee hours of the morning. When I couldn't sleep. When I was in pain. When I alternated between being curled in a ball stretched out trying to hover above the mattress and not actual touch anything. During that time, the only images that I could think about were the horror images of that poor and beautiful creature being hunted down, tortured, chased to the ends of the earth and entangled in barbed wire. The pain and haunting in his eyes. It tortured me.
I can't help but feel that I am that horse. That I am wrapped in invisible barbed wire, cloaked in daggars of pain and trapped in the hell for eternity. Each time I think that I understand things, I'm dealt a new curve and thrown down. I don't understand how I am suppose to deal or get better when I am constantly pushed down, pulled under and run over. Maybe some day, I can start to believe that I will be the horse that makes it out alive. Maybe I can still believe in a happy story.
I hate seeing animals or children in pain. I abhor it. Even though it's a movie. Even though, as my husband argues, 'you know it will have a happy ending'. I hate it because it's all too real. I hate it because I feel enough pain to last me a lifetime. I hate it because I'm already in enough pain, I don't need to see others in pain and not be able to help them either. I'm in so much pain. So much pain that I'm drowning in it. Suffocating in it. Dying from it little by little, day by day. And I don't need to have something else where I can't help the pain, can't help change the course. Can't help make it better. Only sit and watch. Be passive. Be along for the ride.
My husband sat with the remote and tried to cajole me into good spirits as we watched the movie move along and WWII loomed in front of us. As I flinched and tears continued to fill my eyes, he reminded me that this film had accolades galore and that, again, it would have a happy outcome. I nodded and tried to keep passive attention while chanting in my head "this will have a happy ending, this will have a happy ending" but it was having little help with the tears in my eyes and the pounding in my chest.
I finally reached the limit and grabbed the remote out my husbands hands when I could no longer separate myself from the horse. The enemy forces were moving in and the troops were retreating quickly. In effort to let the horse have a chance at freedom, to get out of the living hell, the soldier unharness the horse and tells him to run free, to get the hell out of there. But then a giant hulking tank lumbers onto the scene and the horse starts to get boxed in. There are the giant earth mounds that are making barriers from the horse running free. He is finally able to vault up and over the tank but then as he bolts and run, he hits the saw horses and miles and miles and barbed wire and gets tangled in and he tries to run but finally gets so caught up that he gets thrown back onto his back and is trapped and entangled.
My chest constricted, hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I just knew that in my last life, I was that horse. You know those questions that you get asked in magazine quizes and when you were a kid "if you could be any animal, what would it be", well, in my past life, I was a war horse. I was on that hellish battlefield. I was part of the pair of horses dragging that damn munitions around. I just don't know if I'm the horse that makes it miraculously out of the war alive to live out their days in the tranquil pastures and find life again in peace. Or if I'm the horse that just can't make it. The horse with the ankle that just can't be fixed, that just isn't right, that finally is too far gone and finally dies on the field of battle. Leaving behind their beloved. Their partner.
So back to the happy holiday movie we went. And that helped. But not when it was the wee hours of the morning. When I couldn't sleep. When I was in pain. When I alternated between being curled in a ball stretched out trying to hover above the mattress and not actual touch anything. During that time, the only images that I could think about were the horror images of that poor and beautiful creature being hunted down, tortured, chased to the ends of the earth and entangled in barbed wire. The pain and haunting in his eyes. It tortured me.
I can't help but feel that I am that horse. That I am wrapped in invisible barbed wire, cloaked in daggars of pain and trapped in the hell for eternity. Each time I think that I understand things, I'm dealt a new curve and thrown down. I don't understand how I am suppose to deal or get better when I am constantly pushed down, pulled under and run over. Maybe some day, I can start to believe that I will be the horse that makes it out alive. Maybe I can still believe in a happy story.
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
~Hurt
Nine Inch Nails
