Solution

This is Sister Kitty in an exploratory mode. If only I could be so easily entertained… Because I’m not, I had a minor fret-fest yesterday morning. It’s the same old story: Instead of getting to work on what I should be working on, exploring potential horse careers started pulling me again. So why don’t I just give up this oceanography idea and do what I love? Any number of reasons: I don’t have the training, I’m too old to start training, I haven’t done much showing, especially in the last 13 years, I’m trying to learn a new skill (jumping) and it’s going too slowly to start showing then somehow morph into a professional trainer, there’s not enough money in it, and it’s way too competitive. Even though I don’t necessarily want to be a trainer, I still don’t have the skills to be a barn manager either. What about a riding instructor? I don’t even know how to get started. In other words it’s hopeless.

My sister, who can’t bring herself to follow her art even though that’s what she’s called to do, suggested I start talking to trainers and riding instructors to see how to get started. For some reason I have been reluctant to do that. If I was 20 years old, it would be easy but now that I’m closer to 40 than to 30, I feel that it’s too late. To be successful in this business, I should’ve been showing since I was 10, at the latest. I can still be a good amateur adult in the show ring. It’s never too late to start on that goal. That means that horses are strictly a hobby, not the focal point. This sounds stressful to me because there’s never enough time to accomplish higher goals. On the other hand, starving to death to work with horses is stressful too. Dilemma and the basis of my fret-fest. I’m called but I can’t go.

Fortunately there’s a therapeutic riding center about a 25-minute walk away. I decided to check it out to volunteer yesterday and am very glad I did. I watched the riding lessons of one autistic girl, one girl who walked with a cane and had braces on both ankles, another who was slightly retarded, and another who only had one arm. The environment at this facility is far more about caring for horses and people than at a competition barn. I don’t think I would ever feel good enough in terms of my skills, the horse I’ll be able to afford, the quality of my equipment, nor the height of my goals at a competition barn. At Ride On it feels like all goals are acceptable. The quality of your horse (just your horse handling skills), your tack, your competitive goals are not under scrutiny, yet some of these kids who are able to handle a horse on their own (many cannot and must be held on by the instructor and a volunteer on either side of the horse plus the person leading the horse) do go to shows, similar to the Special Olympics — the same idea anyway.

I cannot describe how good I felt being at this facility. The horses are small and sweet, the kids are fun, and the whole program is so beneficial. I feel like I’ll be doing something positive, I’ll get to be around horses, I’ll learn about instructing beginning riders, and still get to be involved in the competitive world but on a very different level. I start volunteer training on March 6 and will volunteer about 3 hours a week on Thursdays (tentatively).

I just love this idea. It completes so many aspects that feel unfulfilled right now: the need to be useful and to be outside doing something with my hands. I’m really not well suited for a desk job. I’m also looking forward to working with a sect of the population I’ve never had experience with and barely have had any contact. Horses give me something in common with these disabled folks.