when you fall off a horse

….the best thing to do is to get right back up there.

Last week I fell off a horse. Really. No metaphors. Horse is a white paint named Inki. Very strange looking horse, but she’s pretty in her own way.

For the past three or four months I’ve been riding with Little Girl during lessons, and a little in between lesson times. We started by putting a big old Western saddle on poor Inki. Next thing I know, I’m cantering and not really thinking about it. The (real) girls in our group lesson were all doing jumping courses. No jumping in a Western saddle.

I say “real” girls because I am our barn’s token seasoned citizen lesson rider.

After about three weeks I decided to give up the big saddle and go back to the normal English-or-whatever-you-call-it saddle. I’m not very good with equestrian lingo. I just know that going from western back to whatever was sort of like going from a sofa to a balance beam.

Another week went by and I’m cantering Inki comfortably and our wonderful trainer says it’s time for cross-rails. Well, ok.

That went better than I ever expected it to, so we go with small verticals. And I mean small. After a couple of weeks I’m doing that and keeping my balance and everything is just peachy. Trainer and daughter are both talking to me about showing. For the record, I am not, nor have I ever in my life been, a participant in any athletic event. Ever. Clarinet and piano playing are not sports. Neither is book-reading or computer-geeking. Not even stacking plastic cups. (Personally, I think plastic-cup-stacking was invented to make geeky kids like I was have a “sport” to call their own. I just don’t get it.)

Last week I fell off the Inki horse. I’ve fallen off a horse before, more than once. I am an expert at the emergency dismount. We were riding mini-jump courses. I had already successfully taken this jump, at the canter, several times. This time I took the jump just fine, Inki took a couple of strides, then I lost my balance and fell. Actually, I grabbed her neck and rolled off her left side, landed on my ample tush.

So, I got up, brushed off the sand and dirt, got back on the horse, and did the jump again.

Yesterday was lesson day. I didn’t try to canter any verticals, but I did canter cross-rails. I learned that I should not eat lunch at Taco Bell and then ride in 80+ degree weather. I learned that I should have gone back to the barn after last week’s lesson and worked on getting my balance and my confidence back a little quicker. I was reminded that sometimes fibromyalgia gets in the way of my progress and I don’t have the strength or energy I had even one day earlier. And it’s true what they say about activity level and fibro. The best thing to do is to keep pushing, even when you don’t feel like it. I didn’t do that after I fell, and I should have. I will next time.

I have a great bruise. Our barn owner said we should take a picture of it and put it on the barn’s website. “Yes, you too can learn to ride a horse in your fifties and you can have your own big purple butt to prove your success!!”
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I’d like to think there’s a lesson in here for the Wubby.

But the difference, and it’s a big one, is this: when you fall off the horse, you have to WANT to get back on.

what the heck happened?

Captain Phil Harris said, and I quote (edited for PG audience, that is): “Sometimes you make things happen; sometimes you watch things happen; and sometimes you wonder what the heck happened!”

I think I’m in the middle of all three phases with Wubby. I wish I knew where he is, metaphorically speaking that is. I know where he is…I think. I think he’s between classes on the next to last day of what looks to be the divorce of Wubby from college.

It’s absolutely pouring rain right now, which is appropriate. If I can’t cry, then at least the sky can do it for me.

The rain comes in waves. One minute it pours; the next minute it quits. Then it drizzles like it can’t make up its mind about what to do with itself.

That’s Wubby. When he started college he was 25 miles away, living on campus. He was also seriously involved with his much younger girlfriend, spent as much time here at home as he did at school, and it lasted one semester.

Then he came home, signed up at the local community college, continued with the girlfriend and bombed that semester as well. He took last summer off, came back to it last fall and produced a 4.0 average.

This semester has been a roller coaster. Started out high. Then the break-up with the girl. He got a job right before the holidays and has continued working, picking up a second job recently. He found some old friends from high school and earlier and has been spending time with them. Lots of time. As in coming home in the wee hours the night before an 8:00 AM class. Doesn’t work.

I asked him recently if he’d been doing his best this semester. No. Agreed. I asked him why. Interesting answer, something about the freedom of not having girlfriend, combined with lack of motivation because his dad and I told him to get his act together, find an art school or some other appropriate institution, and get busy because we were through with paying for failing grades at community college. In other words, it’s our fault. It’s my fault.

I’m wondering why it matters so much to me, when it doesn’t appear to matter to Wubby. Maybe it will matter to Wubby in time; he just needs to come to the realization himself that he is almost 21 and needs to become self-sufficient.

All I know is that I look at my baby boy, marvel at the artistic and musical talent God gave him, watch him struggle, and turn on the tape recorder inside my head that repeats “It’s your fault. You are the one who is failing him. You are the one who has failed, again. You were not good enough for him. Not good enough. Not good enough.”

I don’t know what to say to Wubby. We’ve told both of our kids that, no matter what the problem is, the best course of action is to tell us what’s going on and not to hide it. I know it’s counter-intuitive to the nature of a teenager, but still. I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth instead of from the gossip vine at the racetrack.

This semester ends Wednesday. Saturday we are leaving for a week at the beach, which was scheduled to coincide with the week between semesters. Guess that wasn’t all that important after all. But we all need a break from the grind.

Proverbs 22:6, from the Message: “Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost.”

OK then.