Jigging at the Bit

I’m breaking up with Vegas.

These days I walk a fine line; a fine line I tell you. I go about my daily business as usual, but just beneath the surface boils an eager anticipation of the future. It isn’t bad, but it is distracting. It’s a willingness, a hunger, a craving for change that leaves me restless at night.

I recognize it from my other life.

It’s the heart racing power of 1200 pounds of muscle between your knees, sidling, prancing, snorting in frustration. Head tossing. Mouthing the steel – testing the tension on the reins. Asking when, when, when can we go…

I used to be the one holding the reins which was kind of fun, but now I am the one jigging at the bit. And it is Not Fun.
If you just showed up in this story, let me give you the rearview mirror version.

For twenty eight years I was a rancher. That went to hell in a hand basket and I hit the road with a new job. I fell into Sin City working a mine site about two years ago and so help me God, I’ve been hunting a way out ever since. Not that I don’t like my job (although for a while there it was touch and go). Not that I don’t have nice digs, or plenty of food. Not that my needs aren’t met here. More than met. Exceeded.

I just don’t belong.

I am a straggly mutt that strayed into the Kennel Club and can’t find the exit. I’m the homeless man outside the Casino. The prostitute in church. Like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, I have learned the jargon, the fashion, the ways of the city… but I open my mouth and the world around me jars to a halt.

It is City Mouse meets Country Mouse and I am the Country Mouse.

I don’t know what’s next for me and that is kind of making me crazy, I admit. I know I’m not going to be transferred to the outback. I know they won’t send me to the Middle of Nowhere. But wherever it is, it won’t be here and that’s okay with me.

I’m through with silicone breasts and tummy tucks and acrylic nails and hair extensions and men that look like women and women that look like skeletons. Don’t get me wrong – what happened in Vegas won’t stay here. Someday I’ll share the stories. But right now, I can’t.  I’m too ready to move on. Move forward. I’m ready to be anywhere but here.

That worries me for about a million reasons I can't explain, but if you're a horseman, you already know.
To put it plainly, I'm jigging at the bit. And that, my friend, is a bad habit. A waste of time that gets you nowhere and does not always end well... for the bit-jigger.