I've seen my fair share of life struggles... divorced parents, abusive step parents, long distance moves, strained relationships, lost time with family that can never be made up (but thankfully are better now) job losses and struggles, hard life choices, and it seems to me the one constant thing in my life has always been, and hopefully always will be, horses. I work like crazy to afford my horse addiction. Most normal people would, and have told me that the amount of money I spend on my horse and the amount of work I do to make sure I can continue to keep him ... the sacrifices I've made and the choices I've made just to ensure his future are crazy... I don't spend nearly as much as some do on this crazy sport... and recently I started to think maybe they were right? Maybe. I let the negative creep in.
Life has a tendency to knock you down...
The $600+ in student loans take their toll... and its going to take 8 years to pay them off.. yep 8 years. The student loans are a quarter of your take home pay... Side note... don't take out loans for school its not worth it!
People you thought were your friends take advantage of you... not paying rent, and then not splitting the refunds from your recently vacated shared apartment... and basically stealing money from you after you so patiently and forgivingly let so many things slide and did something nice for them to help them... all the while acting like you're crazy for suggesting you can't trust them financially or as a friend... and throwing away 2 years of friendship.
The job you love you also hate... because you're working so hard just to keep a float, and do the best you can for the 16 first graders depending on you to shape their future. How are your screw ups, learning curves and imperfections going to affect them... their futures... their lives? Yet you can never seem to get ahead or find a life balance... all the while feeling like the scape goat for our country's failing education system... when in reality our government is making decisions that don't allow us teachers to do our jobs and our parents are failing to parent. Never mind the fact that every year you face the possibility that your job could disappear and you could be back to square one... again.
You start to wonder if life will ever smooth out... feel normal or be easy... ever. Even just for a moment. You get stuck in the negative. And you think maybe letting go of the one thing you care so much about might make life easier... take one stress factor... finding away to keep from losing what you love off your plate... accept the inevitable... rip off the bandaid... give up. And, then you have a day like I had to day and you remember why... why you fight so hard to hold onto what you love.
I had a day off work. I put everything aside and stopped thinking about it. I rode in a lesson today. The sun was shining. There was a breeze and it was just cool enough that it felt like fall in Florida finally. We had a small... almost insignificant moment... literally a moment... where I was working so hard to ride my horse correctly even though every muscle in my body was protesting and then I felt it click... and for that one moment my horse was connected and carrying me... really truly... not just half way...rather then me struggling to hold him together... to keep myself balanced and for a split second riding felt easy... or easier. It didn't last... we went right back to struggling to find a balance and a connection, but I realized that all the hard work we do together made that small moment possible and that if we keep working those small moments will become bigger... longer... better and more connected. Maybe life is that way too... the small moments make the hard ones bearable.
I rode him back to the barn with that realization and my horse was perfect and quiet on the rode despite our friend's younger less experienced horse having moments of spookiness and I thought about how far we'd come together in a relationship thats lasted over ten years. I spent the evening hanging out with my horse friends at the new barn we are moving to and I realized how many awesome friends I have made because of my horse. How many amazing connections I've made because of him.
In every up and down I've faced... every loss... every achievement... ever moment... good... bad... positive... negative... aggravating... and awesome moments, horses have always been there for me.
You can't put a price tag on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment