Never the same!

Dear diary,

I have been taking care of Lote’s Happy Luiss for this week. Yesterday we had this awesome two hour walk in the forest. Today I just jumped on my rider’s private 3 year old he hasn’t ridden outside once and I dared to walk Happy alone on the field with long reins. I know for most of folk’s it might sound ridiculous. But when you have had this really bad experience with one horse and then wrapped yourself up in a cocoon where playing safe dominates it is a big deal. I felt like myself again the person who could jump up on all kinds of stupid horses and just do what was supposed to be done.

This journey abroad has given me an opportunity to deal with the past’s skeletons, to overcome some of my fears. Now I feel like the last step to a fool recovery could be my riding. During the last few years saying no have became more and more easy. Being afraid is a lot easier. Playing safe too. But the trick is that you miss out on so much.

Today we walked with Lote and one of her sentences got to me. After my black gelding and our failures I will never be the same. „But you shouldn’t be the same!” That’s what Lote told me. So simple. It got me thinking. Life doesn’t happen to give you an opportunity for no reason. I never really got over thinking that changing my mare for my black gelding was a big mistake. I don’t regret it but it was a mistake. What if it wasn’t? What if this experience had to change me in this drastic way and I’m yet to discover all it has brought to me.

I would like to say that it have made me stronger when indeed I felt more scared than ever. Maybe the whole point is to reconstruct my confidence, my feeling on the horse. Maybe this baby step that comes in my way is a way of really getting up. And my desperate attempts to be who I was before that is pointless because I shouldn’t be the same anymore. The movie Soul surfer comes to my mind. The girl so desperately focused on the fact that she will never be the same that she couldn’t see from the beginning that she doesn’t have to. Instead she had an opportunity to do things differently and embrace more people with her one arm that she could ever had with two.

I didn’t lose an arm, I lost my confidence. And I will never be the same! And for the first time in a very long time I think it is a good thing! :)  

In photo: Me and Happy!