My Renaissance

The passion for horses that had burned bright all my life seemed to fade. Was that the way of middle age—a gradual fading of the things you love most?

- Catherine Madera

FINALLY, A BREAK IN THE WEATHER.” I spoke out loud, but only our two dogs were listening. “Come on, guys, let’s go for a walk.” An anemic sun was shining. It was only March, though, and the trails would be soggy from weeks of rain. I pulled on my hiking boots. Nothing like a Pacific Northwest winter to give someone a serious case of cabin fever.

It wasn’t just the weather that had made me restless. My mare, Rubi, was overdue to give birth. For the past few weeks, I’d been checking her methodically, day and night. I’d calculated her due date as the end of February. I had already spent more than one night in the barn, watching her as she lay on her side and groaned in discomfort, feeling sure she would foal by the morning. Typically, horses are pregnant for 11 months, but Rubi was decidedly not giving birth and had been pregnant for nearly a year. Why wasn’t the baby coming?

Jamming my cold hands into my pockets, I walked down our long driveway toward the deserted country road that led to mountain trails. I inhaled deeply as the dogs ran laps around my legs and each other, their bodies quivering with excitement. If only I could tap into that deep-down joy.

If I were honest with myself, the frustration ran deeper than a dreary March day or an overdue mare. Something had been happening to me, beginning around the summer that my younger child, my daughter, Haley, graduated from high school and moved 700 miles away for college. It hadn’t occurred to me that middle age could be a problem. I was only 46. People struggled with things like empty nest syndrome when they were much older, right? I was close to my two kids and had a great marriage. My husband, Mark, and I even had the blessing of working from home together, as caretakers of a 40-acre property in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. What did I have to be unhappy about?