The final day at Morven jacked the temps back up to their normal high-90s, and all the ponies just deflated. When I got on Fender to school (at 6:30 a.m., thank you), I swear he looked back at me like, “You MUST be joking. You MUST!!”
I was not, alas, poor Stinky, so he sighed dramatically and rode like a good kid and went back to the barn feeling very pleased with himself, having made a big, lovely change each way, half-passes that didn’t suck, and lovely uphill trot work like a prince. Good man.
Odin spent himself in the locker room, ACING his changes like an old campaigner, and then totally forgetting where he put his legs in the test. Whoops. He still ate up the lateral work in his lovely way and got 8s on both his centerlines, and he placed third in another gigundo class on 60 percent. I just adore the pants off that guy, and I will be very insistent on a good home for him.
Roadie was DTO (that’s Done Tuckered Out, for those who don’t speak Southern), but Virginia rode great. At least, that’s what my working student, Lindsey, said, because all three of us were scheduled to ride at essentially the same time. Doh! I did get to help Kristin and Lala, who nailed another 66 percent to take home the red ribbon. I’m mad proud of both of my ladies—they’re really learning how to horse show. Huzzah!
We drove home through a rather terrifying deluge and at some point were followed by someone named Julia who later emailed me to tell me my brake lights on the trailer aren’t working on one side. Yay for putting my website on my trailer, but an even bigger yay for nice people like Julia, without whom I would have merrily hauled along with no idea that my lights were out. Thanks, Julia!
And here’s where things get a little nutty.
We got home, unhooked my big truck (named Trixie, because what else do you name an F-350 Dually whose color we refer to as “gunmetal?” Trixie, of course. Duh.), and rehooked it to my little trailer, because at 6 a.m. on Monday I loaded Ella up to take her up to Michael’s.
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Her stupid mouth owwie is well-healed, hoorah, but even before the unfortunate sprinkler accident, I’d been banging my own head against a wall. I’ve been feeling like we’re spinning our wheels, and when I mentioned this to Michael, he suggested bringing her up for a bit. So I drove her up, five hours there, five hours back.
I’d had this plan to spend three days a month at his place, but I’ve been so stupid busy that I haven’t made it up there since May, which means that, other than the one lesson I had at the Ride For Life in June, I’ve gone the better part of three months with no help. This is dumb. The top tier of riders is getting help far more often than that, and I am about 10 Gagillion Miles from the top tier.
And it’s not just my riding that’s been lackluster lately. I feel like I’ve forgotten what my friends look like. I can’t tell you the last time I went for a run. And I’ve been eating everything that’ll hold still long enough, because I’m truly not sure on any given day when I’ll have time to prepare some kind of food that doesn’t involve a wrapper and a microwave.
“What happened?” I asked myself on the drive home, trying not to fall asleep at the wheel. “Where did the time go?”
So I looked at my calendar.
I spent June 19-20 in Wytheville, giving a clinic. The next weekend was R4L. Pony Club Camp the weekend after that. Schooling show judging at Quantico the weekend after that. Then Lexington. Then Morven. Then Wytheville and Doswell in one weekend—two clinics, three days. Morven again last weekend. Wytheville again this weekend, and then Saugerties. I have spent the last 10 consecutive weekends on the road, bookending the busiest lesson weeks I’ve ever had.
Time flies when you’re running yourself into the ground.
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I didn’t give it any thought. It’s the job. It’s what I do. It’s how I make the money to go to Florida, to get lessons and enter shows, to replace saddle pads that have fallen into disrepair.
But at some point—and it wasn’t recent, though it’s gone long unnoticed—the job went from “what I do” to “who I am.”
I’m going to rock this weekend’s Wytheville clinic and have a great time at Saugerties. The weekend after that, I’m taking a day off. I’m going to join my best friend and the rest of our posse and do something, maybe float the Shenandoah River, or go to the roller rink, or see Shakespeare in the park. I’m going to blow-dry my hair. I’m going to sleep in—maybe I’ll even make it till 6:30 a.m. (Probably not, though.) And I’m going to promise my friends that I’m not going to mention horses.
I’m going to fail at that last one, but I’m gonna try. And it’s gonna be great.
Lauren
