The first time I sat on a horse I was five. I rode a pony at a birthday party, and I’m pretty sure I cried. I didn’t like how it felt having a horse move under me, and I didn’t like how high up I was. So, when my mother signed my sister and I up for horse camp that next summer I had to fake excitement. At the time, I wanted to do whatever my sister did, even if that meant riding a horse. I hid my concerns, went to camp, and surprisingly found myself not minding it. But did I like it? Unclear, my memory is blurry. I think I enjoyed spending time with my sister at camp, and I liked animals, but maybe not camp itself. After two summers of horse camp, my sister and I signed up for riding lessons in the fall. At this point I was seven and more attached to the idea of being just like my sister than ever. So once again, I sucked it up, and I went to horse lessons.Â
At one point between the ages of seven and ten, my mentality changed, and I became obsessed with horses. Starting in sixth grade, I would work one five hour shift a week. I would clean stalls, fill water buckets, brush horses, and help with the lesson program. I would stay late and leave early. My five-hour shift turned into eight hours quickly. I loved the people I met working at the barn, and to this day I still consider some of them as my closest friends. I started to find real enjoyment in riding. It was rewarding when the horses would listen to me and when I would get praise from my trainer. However, it was devastating when I couldn’t get the horses to do as I asked and when my trainer would compare me to my sister or my friends. This made for a very competitive and stress inducing environment. Eventually the comparisons and backhanded comments got worse, and my lack of love for riding reared its ugly head. Even so, I was determined to fall in love again. The summer going into my freshman year of high school, I worked eight weeks of summer camp and two five-hour 7 a.m. shifts a week for free. I rode maybe once every other week, and every time I rode, I would end up in tears from my trainer yelling at me, telling me I wasn’t good enough. In reality, I was nervous, and I was tired from working so much. I didn’t need to be yelled at, I needed to be comforted, told that my time spent shoveling horse poop and dealing with ungrateful parents was going to mean something, and that it was ok if I wasn’t perfect. After all, I was only 14 years old.
Up until this point, riding horses had deemed itself to be far from therapeutic. I believe now that the work ethic I developed and the friends I made in the barn have made it all worth it, but it took finding new horses for me to get to this point. In the fall of my freshman year of high school, when I was arguably at the lowest I have ever been, my aunt got horses. These horses were different from the previous ones I had known. They weren’t miserable with their lives because they lived outside and were not in a lesson program. They were happy, healthy, and well taken care of. I got to spend the next few months riding for fun, not to keep up with my sister, or to compete with my friends. I was riding for myself. I would spend hours sitting on the horses bareback in the field, just hanging out and taking in the peaceful elements of spending time with horses. I learned that riding doesn’t have to be stressful and that it can be fun to let the horses go too fast and to give up control. Of course, this barn came with its own complications and strange dynamics, but I was able to learn that riding horses is more than just being better than your peers in the eyes of one resentful coach. Riding horses has been both my therapy and one of the reasons why I have gone to therapy. Although the experience I had working with a manipulative boss and trainer was not pleasant, it did teach me that my time is valuable and should not be wasted on people who fail to see that. This experience taught me that it is okay to “give up” if it means protecting yourself, because sometimes giving up means a new opportunity will arise.Â
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