The Things we Used to Love

I fell head over heels in love with horses at age 11.  I liked them before that, but I had very minimal exposure even though I lived in a rural place.  But when some horses moved in next to the parking lot at the gymnastics academy I attended....suffered at....that is when everything changed.

These old pictures are an ode to the (mostly lesson) horses who gave me the world.
Don't worry, I adored and appreciated them all.

I spent as much time as possible hanging out with them.  Luckily for uneducated me, these were very sweet, friendly, polite horses who would happily come over to socialize with someone showing up at their fence line.  I would hang out with them until I was dragged inside for torture, I mean gymnastics, and I would run back out to see them again as soon as I could get away.  My dad would have to force me to get in the car to go home.  

My father was no fool, he saw the writing on the very expensive wall.  Not to mention I was abjectly terrible at gymnastics.  Like.....the instructors coud not even believe a young girl was that unbendable.  If I couldn't do a split from the ages of 8-11 it was never going to happen.  But we were also quite poor.  Horses even then were not readily accessible to the poor and my dad was not excited to go down this road but he did it.  He found me a lesson barn where helmets, tack, and the lesson itself were included to squeeze it into our tiny budget.

Champy, the Chincoteague pony who I loved with my whole heart and who hated children. 

I won her over eventually and was there to say goodbye to her many years later.

I was allowed 1 lesson per week.  For 7 years, that was nearly all the riding time I got although I would do any other catch riding I could. It was everything to me.  As soon as we left the barn I would start counting down until my next lesson.  If my abusive mother wanted to punish me, she knew saying I couldn't ride that week was devastating.  Luckily, she enjoyed my absence more (my dad took me to every single lesson.  I later learned most of my barn friends thought my mother was dead). 

Tory an adorable Appy with great knees

Finally in college I had a car and enough money that I could pay for gas to drive myself to the barn, although not much else.  My trainer was doing a bit of horse flipping with auction horses at the time and she was happy for me to put as many hours as I could into her projects.  It was bliss.  I finally could spend as much time riding and caring for horses as I wanted.  I practically lived at the barn.  I honestly am not sure I have ever been as contented as I was that first summer when I didn't have classes and just woke up every day, went to the barn, stayed all day, and came home when it got dark.  It wasn't all riding, I mucked stalls, scrubbed buckets, fed, stacked hay bales, tended injuries, helped with lessons but I lived and breathed the barn.

As soon as I graduated college I got a  Real job and bought a house.  Right after that I bought a horse. Of course.

  

Apollo, the goodest good boy.

A cheap horse, one of the projects that came through the barn, but all mine.  He was one of the kindest and smartest horses I have known, and that is saying something.  Alas, he couldn't stay sound.  After several years, I eventually gave him to someone who just wanted a horse to hang with.  I went back to catch riding and at that point I was good enough to be in demand.  A few years after that, I took a bit of a break after some barn drama.

Jack, whom you literally couldn't miss a distance on.

But I couldn't stay away and once I got settled into CO, I took some lessons and got back into it.   Most of what happened after that is captured in this blog.  I got Fawkes, who was the physically soundest horse and the least mentally sound.  And the cutest fucking thing.  

That is when it started though.  I remember deciding to go to a yoga class instead of to the barn.  That had never happened before.  NOTHING came before going to the barn.  

My then boyfriend and I chalked it up to the difficulties of riding Fawkes and I eventually made the very heart wrenching decision to rehome him.

More Jack and me riding better

Things were better with Odin for a long time.  But I could still feel the passion dying off.  I was enjoying myself, but compared to younger me, the zest was absent.  Why? Why? Why?  Owning horses is hard.  Stressful.  Expensive. Several of my friends got very serious riding injuries in a short time.  You never seem to feel good enough or like you are doing enough.  Was that enough to explain it?

Bob who helped me learn to jump bigger

After Odin's colic I was done.  We hauled him to the emergency clinic and they were like, well we have another surgical case so you can wait and hope he makes it or haul him for another 3 hours to the other place that can operate.  We could barely keep him standing.  We waited.  Luckily they got to him and he was ok.  He had a mostly uncomplicated recovery.  I had a meltdown. 

Odin's new owner took him right after that.  I had been riding a lesson horse while he was recovering, another very good boy who just needed Big Girl Rides from time to time but he and I bonded so my trainer was like, ride him as much as you want, it makes him so happy. It was low key, low stress, no pressure and I thought I found the magic solution.  Chevy and I were meant to be and we had a great time.  But it didn't stop.  It felt like something core to what I was as a person was being stripped away and I couldn't do anything about it.  

So I stopped.  Entirely.  I figured (figure?) the desire will come back eventually.  But I really don't know.  So far I don't miss riding at all.  And I still go see Odin and Chevy and my barn friends and I still get those soft snoot kisses.  

Chevy, my little Red Fury

I went to therapy, they didn't have any answers for me.  

Sometimes I think it's the abused child thing - I needed horses to survive, escape, have an outlet, something pure.  Now I am definitely in a much better place foundationally but it isn't like I enjoy the world that much more as an adult.

Bowie,  I loved you so much. I am forever grateful for my time with you.

And while horses are the most devastating loss (emotionally, I cannot express enough how much better my finances are now), they aren't the only one.  I used to be an obsessive football fan.  Now I quite literally can't make myself care about a football and have an almost resentful opinion of it.  

Horses and football were 2 things that are irrevovably interlinked to my relationship with my Dad.  One by his choice and one he was dragged along for (look the man might not have wanted to learn, but by the end he could make the best hoof abscess poultice wrap in the lower 48 - thanks Apollo).  So maybe his loss ties into it too, he died in early 2019 but let's just say his decline meant the grieving process started long before that.   

She taught me what it felt like to fly.

Probably I will never really know.  But I will admit, I worry that my remaining passions are at risk.  It's also weird to miss loving something but not miss that thing itself.    There is a cognitive dissonance there I can't quite grasp.

One thing for sure though, I am endlessly beyond grateful for both that passion and the horses that were there for me when I needed them.  Even just looking at these older photos, I can still feel how deeply I loved these horses .  The lesson horses had hard lives at the barn where I rode as a kid, I hope I paid them back.   And I don't regret a single moment (or dollar).