Prologue

It is hard to say where the hands of fate started to direct Twilight and I towards each other. I could have been when I moved to Idaho five and a half years ago, or it could have simply been the works of random circumstance. I don't know and honestly I don't ever want to. I'm a hopeless romantic and would like to think that destiny guided us together. But chances are we just happened to collide in the midst of the storm of life.


When I was 14 years old I began to struggle with depression, which worsened over time. I stopped eating and began to lose weight rapidly, till I was considered anorexic, even though I did not have an eating disorder. My skin became ashen, and I began to lose my long dark hair. But I did not care, I was trapped in the waves of depression and did not notice my body was shutting down. Every day I wished for my life to end, for the opportunity to close my eyes and die. The world was frozen in a cold mist that fogged over my mind and weighed me down. I slept endlessly and had difficulty waking up each morning.


School was a painful blur that I was barely coherent for. My grade started slipping and my teachers began dropping subtle hints that they knew something was wrong.



I suffered through visiting specialist for my multiple problems 4 specialist per week, a psychiatrist, psychologist, dietitian and pediatrician . Each one was monotonous, and prodding, which left my emotions raw and tender. I became reclusive and closed in upon myself pulling in the threads of my quickly unraveling world, there were to many lose threads and ends in my life and I became hopelessly entangled in the snarling knot that was my reality. Eventually I got to the point where I could not force myself to get out of bed. Sleeping days away and not caring, and almost enjoying the oblivion I had fallen into. I had reached the breaking point, my life was officially shattered. I was institutionalized for over a month, living with other teenagers who had problems similar to my own. I slowly started to climb out of the hole of depression. Shortly after I turned 15 I was released.


It was difficult to relearn the motions of life after a month of life on hold. Everything felt awkward and empty. I was constantly paranoid believing people were staring at me and that they somehow knew I had been hospitalized. However, there was relief in returning to the real world, because in the real world there were horses.


I have been riding horse sporadically since I was 4 years old, at a variety of places from elegant stables, to old half barns with bleached wood fences. And I have ridden a wide spectrum of horses from a retired thoroughbred to an irritable strawberry roan mustang altering between English and Western riding. I'm certainly not a flawless rider, but I can hold my own. I have had my fair share of run away horses and painful falls.


Horses have always been a powerful influence in my life. Its a delightful addiction. The smell of sweet hay, the must of horse sweat and dust, and the occasional haunting neigh and methodical crunch of shod hooves on gravel. It is a harmony, familiar and comforting. I was very lucky when I moved to Idaho form my home in Utah I did not need to withdrawal myself from the world of horses, if anything I waded in deeper.