This is my last day in my 20s. Is that a milestone? I always find thinking of age as an achievement to be bizarre, as the years come and go whether you actually do anything with your time or not.
Looking back on my 20s, and ahead to my 30s, I don’t really think much of my life strategy has changed. Perhaps that is a red flag of immaturity, but I always have and still do think the goal of life is to bust seams.
Busting seams can be literal, as a friend’s dress split open dancing at 2 a.m. at my party last Saturday (theme: Prom, because why not?). But more often, busting seams is a mentality; it’s an unabashed approach to life.
Hours fly by, days pile up, and before long the fifth grader with wild dreams has settled into a monotonous lifestyle of compromise. But no matter where you find yourself: bust seams.
It is a warped world view to think that anyone can leave their job and its security to “chase dreams,” especially once children are involved. But, that doesn’t mean that the life you live can’t be completely and totally full.
My dad had a job running a newspaper, and I wouldn’t call that his passion, but he came home and shuffled me off to car shows for the Model A he built in the shed in the backyard. He snuck out weekend mornings to our rose gardens to tend the plant loves of his life. He took me to all the random things I was interested in (pet stores, barns, theater). He took his lunch once a week, in a suit, to join me at my fifth grade cafeteria (he was 6’2”, the seats were made for people that were 3’2”).
He always stayed up late watching his favorite show, Murder She Wrote. His life isn’t some poster for throwing responsibility to the wind and following “your dream,” but his life was a dream because it busted with love, with laughter, with passions, and with duty. “Whatever you do,” he always said, “do it well.”
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That includes life. Bust seams.
When I work, I hurl myself forward at 90 miles an hour, flying through tasks and phone calls and book-keeping. If I am going to work—and I must work—then why do so with dragging feet? I have a life to live, and I can’t let these things take up my other time.
Further, when I jump in headfirst to work, the passion follows. My energy is contagious, my emails have more sparkle, my clients sense my joy. Work is a gift, and whatever it is, it is a privilege denied to many. And if you don’t get consumed by it, you can remember it is the stepping-stone to so many other joys in life. So no matter what you do, remember how you do it. Bust seams.
When I get to the barn, time slows, because these minutes are the ones that need to feel like hours. These minutes are the ones that put the passion in the moments. These minutes are the ones that, 50 years from now, I will remember like they were yesterday. I don’t run frantically through my chores and ride while thinking of the 15 things I have to do later. Because I don’t have to do them now. Because now is what I do them for.
So I let the smell of pine consume me when I pick out stalls, and I watch the clouds of moisture coming out of my mare’s nostrils on a cold day, and I listen intently to the sound of silence accented by crunching leaves when I hack. I let those moments completely fill with everything they have to offer, because for me, it is everything. Bust seams.
When I go on vacation, I do it fully and unapologetically. Computer is off, internet is as dead as it was in 1984, and the rest of the world can wait. Surely we all wait on it enough, and there isn’t that much time to spare. Stay up too late, sleep in, order an extra drink, take too many photos. Bust seams.
When I am at dinner, I am at dinner. Put the phone away, look people in the eye, enjoy your food. It is a sad cycle that people work to be able to afford these things, but then do not enjoy them. Tell old stories, ask about hopes, order dessert. Bust seams.
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As my 30th birthday hangs in the balance, the only thing I regret is the time I have let hang limply. The time wasted on worry, on fear of failure, on rejection, on anger, on all the emotions that create a vortex and consume our limited moments in mass.
Have I failed? Of course. But if you are going to fail, it might as well be in grand fashion. If you are going to fail, let it be on a stage that few get to, and let it be with a joy that few possess. Because the failure won’t stay with you, but all the moments getting there, all the friends along the way, all the wrong turns and the dead ends, all the people that helped when you needed it: those will fill your life. Even in failure, bust seams.
So here’s to 30! Here’s to hoping I never become meek in the face of life. Here’s to my hopes and dreams as they stand. Here’s to writing a book that might be terrible, to getting to an FEI event and finishing in last place, to dancing in public as if I were being tased.
And here’s to the ways life will shape me that I can’t even fathom. Here’s to having children, to letting a sense of duty and pride take me over, to not galloping as fast because there is too much to lose, to being a completely overwhelmed parent. Here’s to still, in all decades of my life, letting my moments in the barn last forever and fill me. Here’s to busting seams.
One of the Chronicle’s bloggers, Kristin Carpenter juggles the management of her own company, Linder Educational Coaching, organizing the Area II Young Rider Advancement Program out of Morningside Training Farm in The Plains, Va., and eventing at the FEI levels. She grew up in Louisiana and bought “Trance,” a green off-the-track Thoroughbred, as a teenager. Together, they ended up competing at the North American Young Riders Championships and the Bromont CCI**. She’s now bringing another OTTB, Lizzie, up through the ranks.
