Getting to 'yes'

The fall of 2008 moved on and I quickened my pace a little with the searching for reasons why I should leave the horse thing alone and setting up roadblocks to make sure that I did. "It costs too much". "You don't have time". "You're too old - your body won't hold up". "You've forgotten everything anyway". "You'd never be any good at it again, if you ever were in the first place".

Yes, I am a master of derailing my own train. If anybody else said any of those things to me I'd be up out of my seat in a heartbeat prepared to go kick some a** and take some names. But hey, I've never claimed to be, um, entirely well-adjusted...

My beautiful boy kept trying to encourage me to go for it - to find something, ANYTHING to get me excited and inspired and maybe moving out of the work/bitch/moan/sleep/work again rut. My life was all about work and it was making me and everybody else miserable. I love what I do on a certain level and I've worked very hard to get where I am, but being "career oriented" is not what I was doing at all- it was workaholism and totally unhealthy. Every time the poor boy tried to talk to me about it I tore a strip off him and told him to run his own life. I also never said I was always nice, for those of you keeping score.

I got a little tipsy one night and started looking around craigslist for horse-related content. If you've spent any time on CL you will probably agree that alot of people use it when they've had a couple of drinks, but that's an observation that isn't entirely relevant to the business at hand here. So anyhow, on this particular evening sometime in late October/early November I came across an ad for riding lessons at a stable in Richmond, about a 20 minute drive from my home and my office both.

Being a little emboldened by the red wine, I fired off an email reply to the post stating that I was interested in getting back into riding, had a fair degree of experience, did not want to take lessons, didn't know if my body could take it and would they have anything to offer someone like me or know where I should go if they did not, etc. I hit 'send' and then spent the next day or two hoping that the email would bounce back and that my lack of judgment wouldn't find me at some barn in Richmond signed and mounted up within a matter of minutes.

The telephone response to my call came in the afternoon, two days after my email. A woman named Linda who owned the barn called me and said that they had lots of options outside the lesson stream and several horses that I might enjoy. I booked a time to go out to be assessed and then set about trying to find ways to cancel. I didn't breathe a word of this to The Boy since I was sure it would be going nowhere, though I also didn't cancel and even went so far as to go buy a new modern helmet just in case.

The appointed hour arrived and I found myself here:

http://riversidestables.ca/

Riverside is a beautiful facility, certainly the loveliest in Richmond and one of the best in the Lower Mainland. It's in a great location and it has a wonderful atmosphere, which is something that can be very hard to find in serious Hunter/Jumper barns. You know from the minute you walk in that it's well-run and topnotch in every aspect. Very, very professional and also very down to earth - this is quite an achievement in my experience.

Linda and I had a nice chat about what I had in mind and what Riverside could offer. I told her flat-out that I was pretty worried about my knees not being able to take the strain. I have patellofemoral syndrome:

http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/kbase/topic/special/tp22235spec/sec1.htm

caused by all the riding I did as a young person. It's worse in the winter, but I've only ever had one episode where I was incapacitated by it. This was brought on by carrying heavy boxes up and down steep stairs. I had no idea what might happen if I started riding again regularly, especially in the winter but I wasn't optimistic that's for sure.

Linda asked me if I wanted to do an assessment that day and I figured I might as well capitalize on the opportunity since I'd kept the appointment and packed my chaps, boots and new helmet. There was some discussion amongst the staff as to who I should ride and the final word was that I should try Dante because "if she can ride him, she can ride anyone".

Dante turned out to be a little chestnut Arab/Appy mix with a sweet face and a kind eye. Not necessarily "my type", as I tend to prefer larger, lankier horses and this boy was 15 something and pretty, um, round. Oh well,I thought, I'm looking for ways to get out of this so let's get on with it.

I groomed and tacked and fiddled with the boots - "which way does this go again? Oh right... see I told you you wouldn't remember any of it" - then headed to the arena for my assessment. Angela, one of the instructors, told me to expect that Dante might be a little sensitive to noise and we commenced our lesson with Linda in the ring teaching one of her young jumping students. I certainly knew i was being watched.

Angela put me through my paces which I found excruciatingly difficult. My comment to her was "my muscle memory has Alzheimers" (no offense to anybody who is living with this disease - I fully understand its gravity). My brain knew exactly what to do but my body just couldn't respond to the cues. I felt clunky and messy and not at all on my game.

Despite the un-showiness of my body, etc. I thought things were going along pretty well. Dante wasn't exactly finely tuned, but then again, neither was I- he bore with me and didn't seem offended that I wasn't exactly graceful and concise in my seat and aids. I found myself leaning down to pat him and thank him repeatedly for being such a good sport about it all. He did a couple of little bucks in the canter transitions, which I attributed entirely to my sloppy seat and figured were fair.

At a certain point, we passed the big sliding door at one end of the arena - the scary end for Dante apparently, because each time we rode into it he tensed up and got antsy- there was a loud sound from the shedrow as we entered the top corner and he was off like a shot. I lost a stirrup in the take-off but had him back in hand at the opposite corner anyway, despite fishing for my inside iron to try to recover. I found myself laughing and asking Angela if I had passed. The body still knew how to deal with that sort of problem apparently, which I took as a very good sign.

When I was sufficiently sweaty and absolutely sure I'd be unable to walk the next day, Angela let me off the hook. Linda had seen everything and didn't say much about my skills, which was a relief. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being awesome, I was about a 2. She told me the price of a half-lease and asked if I'd be interested. I said yes and that I'd be ready to start December 1st.

A challenge had been issued and I wasn't going to turn away from the chance to ride a horse that would whip me into shape mentally and physically in short order; even if he wasn't necessarily my type, Dante would be kind about my issues and totally honest about his own.

Driving home that night, I was seeing stars. The little bolt episode had caught me off guard and left me behind enough that I had a bit of whiplash. For the next week, I was in pain all over and could barely turn my head. I lived on Advil and the thought of beginning a new chapter in my life with horses. I wasn't going to back out unless I was crippled.

About three days before my half-lease was to start I started to feel better and could even turn my head well enough in both directions. It was time to begin...