...though the stars walk backward

plus six or seven people who just….can’t figure out what a frog paper could possibly be. (guys it’s…a scientific paper. about frogs.)

and this one

which made me laugh despairingly because i mean

Hey y’all….. ya miss me?

It’s been… so long. So long that I almost feel like I need to introduce myself haha. But yes, this is Jenna, and that’s Fizz, and somewhere off in the distance, there’s Bob. This is our new home, our new life. Things have changed a LOT for us in the past few years. What hasn’t changed, though, is my love for these two guys and for our sport.

I want to tell you all about it. I don’t have a community of riding friends here like I used to back when I was blogging - and that made me realize how much I missed the little community I had on tumblr while I had it.

So, here’s to getting back into things. Check back soon for posts about where I’ve been, and where I’m going. Hopefully, you can expect to see more of me and my guys on here soon. In the meantime, if you need a refresher on who I am or who my horses are, or what this blog is all about, check out the nav links on my homepage.

Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.

Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.

Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.

Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.

I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.

Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.

But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.

tumblr wouldnt exist for another two years

bush was still president

lost hadn’t aired its second season yet

youtube wasnt even a year old

the #1 song was kanye west - gold digger

ariana grande was 12

taylor swift wasn’t famous yet

A recent research team attached GPS trackers to a group of pet cats to track their whereabouts when their owners were not around or sleeping. The daily movements of the pet cats surprised many owners. Take a peek below.

“When you speak to a lot of cat owners they say: “Oh my cat just (…) doesn’t go anywhere.” (…) Some of the cats have “gone three kilometeres from home”.”

This cat went in such a straight line it can only have been following a major road for a long period. 

This cat went more than a kilometer into the wilderness at night, potentially exposing itself to all sorts of urban and rural predators. 

This cat traveled repeatedly through the yards of other houses as well as spending a good amount of time in the middle of the road. 

then he realised HE COULD CAPTION THEM