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Adult Rider Reality
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As a child and junior rider, I remember looking up to the adults with awe and envy. I remember thinking how lucky they are to be able to do everything the way they want, go to shows on their own, buy whatever tack they want, and whichever and however many horses they could possibly desire. I remember thinking that with so many years of practice and wisdom, they must know everything about horses, and be able to get any horse to do anything they want. With all that experience they must be so brave, with such developed seats, and all the big jumps and advanced dressage tests must be so easy.
Well, I have recently graduated to ‘adult rider’, and let me tell you, it is not in any way what I expected. As an example, allow me to share with you what happened to me today. For you to fully understand this anecdote, you first need to understand one unpleasant fact of life: children have fast metabolisms, and millennials (or at least the majority of us) are weak-willed jellyfish who love good food. I was always known as the skinny twig child, partly because I just was that way, and partly because (although I ate plenty of rubbish) my mother did not feed me very much. Then I moved out of home, and in with my boyfriend who (and herein lies the problem) can cook. Well... and he comes from a ‘large portion size’ type of family. Can you guess where this is going? I bet you can. It’s going up a pants size, I can tell you that much, because right now my bellybutton looks like a small buttcrack in my old jods.
Anyway, unattractive imagery aside, I am now learning to deal with a slightly different body type, and this comes with strange and unexpected complications. I imagine it’s kind of like what getting a boob job feels like. Except without the giant boobs. So today, I experienced how a slightly different body type can vastly alter the experience of a very simple task; in this case, listening to music while I ride. I’ve done this plenty of times before. I like listening to music to keep myself feeling calm and patient, and to help me with my rhythm while schooling. So, like a thousand times before, I put my phone into my pocket and plugged in my earphones. My phone is pretty big, and the pockets in my new (bigger) jods are fairly shallow, so it pokes out the top a bit, and then the earphones plug in to the top of my phone, so it’s basically like an entire statue of liberty sticking out of my pocket.
And right into my muffintop!
Don’t know what that is? Don't worry... neither did I before ‘adulthood’. But trust me, if you have as little self-control and motivation as me then it is in your future. Your little twig body won’t be effort-free forever. But I digress (in envy), basically, I was riding at trot and canter with a rubber earphone jack poking right into the tiny fatroll that likes to flab around over the waistline of my jods, and now I have a GIANT FRICTION BURN ON MY TUMMY! And yes, the caps were necessary, because this thing hurts like a papercut’s rude second cousin. And I did not even realise that this was happening until I lifted my shirt and saw a nice bright red line of raw, bloody flesh above my hip, because in the past, my earphones would just politely jab into my flat tummy each time I sat in the trot, and although annoying and minimally painful, they caused me no injury. So I assumed this time it would be the same... but I assumes wrong. Because adulthood is a RAW DEAL.
Okay, I’m done with the caps now, I promise, but my rant isn’t quite over, because you see, of all those expectations I had of adulthood, not one of them has turned out the way I thought. I mean, yes, I can buy all my own tack, so I can dress my horse in the most expensive garb I like. But do you know what else that means? I have to pay for my own tack. And do you know what that means?
And I’m lucky enough to do what I love (riding), and have a mom who helps me pay for my horses’ livery, but it’s still damn hard work, let me tell you, and not many people are as lucky as me. And as for “Experience”, “Wisdom” and “Seat”? Ha. Ha ha ha. Am I more experienced? Sure. Does that mean I know everything about horses? Nope! All it means is that I have a better grasp of how much I don’t know. And does it help my confidence? Nope! Because you know what comes with experience? Experience of what can go wrong. And with age comes an extremely unuseful ‘sense of self-preservation’, so you better believe that now when I present a green horse to a huge trakehner, I’m not thinking about how great it’s going to feel or how cool the photo will be. I’m picturing the horse stopping and sliding into the ditch, or falling and crushing me. Which, let me tell you, does not do wonders for my ‘commitment’ as a rider. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still confident and assertive. I’m a brave rider and I’m good at what I do. But I’m not fearless like I used to be. Now, that first 90cm on a strange horse takes some courage. That 1,30m oxer looks big. And no, I don’t want to jump the ditch, but I will.
In summation, being an adult sucks. And having considered my free trial, I have decided that being an adult is not for me. Does anybody know how I can unsubscribe from this service? If it requires evidence of my reason for dissatisfaction, I currently have a band-aid on my belly. |
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