Can't take the Country out of the Girl, apparently...
At a horse show recently I realized, you can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.
I spent all of my adult life trying to get myself away from all things country and here I am finding my personal joy immersed in nothing but the goodness of country things!
Boots, jeans, outdoors, horses, dirt, sweat and pure bliss!
It is insane to me how fast life changes. Two years ago I was giving up on a life long dream, keeping a door closed to what I really wanted, telling myself that those wants were not within my grasp.
I was throwing myself into my work and only my work. I was unhappy, hollow, going through the motions of adult life and trying to figure out where I belonged.
Two years ago I thought I would never have a horse, thought I was going to be some varying level of miserable forever. I thought that being an adult meant being in some level of constant disappointment.
I was wrong. With the encouragement of my awesome husband, I decided to sign up for riding lessons and within a few months I found my world. I found a community of amazing people, a barn full of fantastic horses and a way of life that I had denied myself for too long.
None of it was as scary or as expensive as I had always believed it would be. None of it was as out of reach or extravagant as I had thought. This is where I fit, these are people that I can laugh with, cry with, be myself with, people who tolerate, celebrate and encourage me, people who believe in me even when I don't.
I have been blessed in my life to have family and friends that are good as gold, but I never dreamed there could be a whole community of people who would accept me with open arms, yet there they were. With them came a whole host of goodness, a barn full of horses, riding lessons for me to grow through and a horse that stole my heart the first time I met him.
Horses are like anything else, when you know, you know. We clicked and then things aligned, now we are riding partners for the rest of his life.
So in a little less than two years my life went from one of stress, frustration, anxiety and agitation, to one where I know peace. Peace is by far my favorite feeling, it is an elusive mistress, an intangible sense and something we all strive for, constantly.
We look for it in religion, in relationships, in politics, in work...we look for it every where we go. Yet so few of us find it. I have found it with happy, healthy horses!!
I still have many miles to go in this life, many hills to conquer, but to know that I found any part of peace is something I am utterly grateful for.
There is a rightness to my life that wasn't there before, a shift clicking into place as I accept, embrace and own the part of myself I was hiding from.
I am grateful beyond measure and I take no part of my good fortune for granted. Even the aspects that I paid for in blood/sweat/tears, I know that all of that is in part due to some kind of luck. So I choose to see all of it with the lens of love and be ever in awe of the power of life, the course of the personal journey and to be always appreciative of the goodness I have found.
I tell you all of this because the journey with a horse is not just one of a sport, or a pet, or a friend, it is the story of yourself. They bring out so much in the human soul, and if you pay attention you will learn an incredible amount about yourself. That growth, it lasts a lifetime and it never stops. Every horse I will fall in love with in my life will teach me about me, and I will lose a part of myself when each of them moves along.
Tonight, Pistol helped me see what has been bugging me for weeks now. It's the thought of travel, of being away from him, my hubs, my dog, and my home. I travel a fair amount, and I do enjoy seeing new places, but here (home) is where my heart is. So every time I leave, I have a hard time pulling myself away from all the things I love. As I led Pistol to his pasture, I felt the familiar twinge of anxiety starting. I guess he sensed something, because he pulled on his lead and looked at me, so we paused in our walk and I just stood with him until I calmed down. Then we walked on and after I took off his halter, we stood together again for a few long moments. When I left him, he was watching me go and I looked back over my shoulder a few times. I have to say I drove away tonight with tears in my eyes. Part of my heart lives with that horse and saying goodbye even for a few days is hard.
I know he will do his horsey thing all week and that my amazing community will keep an eye on him. I will be home in a few days and can bask in all the rightness of my little world again.
(Oh and in case you were wondering, saying bye to the doggo and hubs is gonna be rough too!!)
I spent all of my adult life trying to get myself away from all things country and here I am finding my personal joy immersed in nothing but the goodness of country things!
Boots, jeans, outdoors, horses, dirt, sweat and pure bliss!
It is insane to me how fast life changes. Two years ago I was giving up on a life long dream, keeping a door closed to what I really wanted, telling myself that those wants were not within my grasp.
I was throwing myself into my work and only my work. I was unhappy, hollow, going through the motions of adult life and trying to figure out where I belonged.
Two years ago I thought I would never have a horse, thought I was going to be some varying level of miserable forever. I thought that being an adult meant being in some level of constant disappointment.
I was wrong. With the encouragement of my awesome husband, I decided to sign up for riding lessons and within a few months I found my world. I found a community of amazing people, a barn full of fantastic horses and a way of life that I had denied myself for too long.
None of it was as scary or as expensive as I had always believed it would be. None of it was as out of reach or extravagant as I had thought. This is where I fit, these are people that I can laugh with, cry with, be myself with, people who tolerate, celebrate and encourage me, people who believe in me even when I don't.
I have been blessed in my life to have family and friends that are good as gold, but I never dreamed there could be a whole community of people who would accept me with open arms, yet there they were. With them came a whole host of goodness, a barn full of horses, riding lessons for me to grow through and a horse that stole my heart the first time I met him.
Horses are like anything else, when you know, you know. We clicked and then things aligned, now we are riding partners for the rest of his life.
So in a little less than two years my life went from one of stress, frustration, anxiety and agitation, to one where I know peace. Peace is by far my favorite feeling, it is an elusive mistress, an intangible sense and something we all strive for, constantly.
We look for it in religion, in relationships, in politics, in work...we look for it every where we go. Yet so few of us find it. I have found it with happy, healthy horses!!
I still have many miles to go in this life, many hills to conquer, but to know that I found any part of peace is something I am utterly grateful for.
There is a rightness to my life that wasn't there before, a shift clicking into place as I accept, embrace and own the part of myself I was hiding from.
I am grateful beyond measure and I take no part of my good fortune for granted. Even the aspects that I paid for in blood/sweat/tears, I know that all of that is in part due to some kind of luck. So I choose to see all of it with the lens of love and be ever in awe of the power of life, the course of the personal journey and to be always appreciative of the goodness I have found.
I tell you all of this because the journey with a horse is not just one of a sport, or a pet, or a friend, it is the story of yourself. They bring out so much in the human soul, and if you pay attention you will learn an incredible amount about yourself. That growth, it lasts a lifetime and it never stops. Every horse I will fall in love with in my life will teach me about me, and I will lose a part of myself when each of them moves along.
Tonight, Pistol helped me see what has been bugging me for weeks now. It's the thought of travel, of being away from him, my hubs, my dog, and my home. I travel a fair amount, and I do enjoy seeing new places, but here (home) is where my heart is. So every time I leave, I have a hard time pulling myself away from all the things I love. As I led Pistol to his pasture, I felt the familiar twinge of anxiety starting. I guess he sensed something, because he pulled on his lead and looked at me, so we paused in our walk and I just stood with him until I calmed down. Then we walked on and after I took off his halter, we stood together again for a few long moments. When I left him, he was watching me go and I looked back over my shoulder a few times. I have to say I drove away tonight with tears in my eyes. Part of my heart lives with that horse and saying goodbye even for a few days is hard.
I know he will do his horsey thing all week and that my amazing community will keep an eye on him. I will be home in a few days and can bask in all the rightness of my little world again.
(Oh and in case you were wondering, saying bye to the doggo and hubs is gonna be rough too!!)
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