Opting Out

I am not done with eventing.  I still want to go Prelim.  I still want to produce another from green.  I still believe there is nothing in the world like running cross-country on a good horse.  Like so:

But I decided this winter to move on from our long-time barn and since making that call, I have done a whole lot of thinking about what feels like the right sort of horse-life now.  I have a substantial commute now, and a boyfriend, and a fragile senior dog, and a motivated younger dog with which I’ve taken up tracking, and I’m taking a class now with plans for more in the future, and it’s probably a good thing every once in a while to be made to stop and reassess my priorities.

When I did that, I discovered the extent to which “compete actively this year” had slid down my list and been replaced at the top by items like independence and flexibility, and by being able to devote enough time/energy/attention to the things that are important to me – horses and sport included! – without feeling constantly pulled towards thirty different responsibilities at once and doing a good job with none of them.

So Tuck and I are heading at the end of this week to a barn with great care and great turnout, with less formal structure and guidance, more freedom and quiet, and I feel really good about it.  I also feel really good about the 5 to 7+ hours of time previously spent in my car that I’ll be getting back every week!

It is a barn that I could very, very easily event out of, if I wanted to.  I’m excited about that.  I won’t be competing this year, but I would like to keep my hand in with a lesson here, a jump school there…and I plan to be out and about volunteering at some of my usual venues.  I will see you guys around!

(Also I am still on the Area 1 educational scholarship committee and this year’s application deadline is coming up.  Just saying.)

Like I said, I won’t be competing this year.  For a couple of reasons.  Top two:

-       I feel like we need to regroup and try some things different, if we’re going to have more success at Training, and April is not really the time to be doing that if one hopes to beginning competing in May or June.  Which doesn’t mean that we couldn’t get to work on that now and hold off on entries until later in the season, but…

-       I am really feeling the itch to have my own wheels.  I’ve been getting by through the kindness of friends but I think the time has come to acquire a truck and trailer of my own.  I can’t compete this season and save my pennies for a rig at the same time, but it turns out that’s a trade that I’m willing to make.

But I am a goal-oriented competitive freak and felt a little cut adrift…

…until I remembered that last year, I had tentatively penciled a Limited Distance ride onto the end of my season.  It ended up not happening, but I have been wanting to try endurance for ages and ages.  I dig endurance sport in general; I’m a former runner, former backpacker, currently a hiker and tracker.  I like details and preparation and plans, and the execution and implosion and constant reworking thereof.  I am fascinated by sport that runs along the edge of what’s possible.  Too chicken myself to try that hard and cut it that close, but fascinated nonetheless.  And much as I love speed and adrenaline, when I do get out into the woods and start covering steady-state distance, I’m reminded that this, too, is valuable medicine for my scatter-shot restless self.

Maybe, I said to myself, here is a chance to provide myself with a few goals and some structure in a way that will make me more sane, rather than less.  While fitting comfortably into the rest of my life and while checking a few boxes on my “what I want to do this summer” list.  Hiking and fitness, off the top of my head.

And maybe here’s a chance to reevaluate where Tuck and I are, these days, and a new project for the both of us instead of knocking knocking knocking on those same old doors.

(I have a feeling he is going to love this stuff.)

So no, not done with eventing.  Possibly not even done with eventing this particular horse.  Just – on vacation.

Or maybe on staycation, since my favorite eventing venue also offers organized distance riding and that’s the venue around which I’ve build my tentative plan.  I will describe that in the next post, and then do the good news/bad news list in post after that.  (Sneak preview!  Those of you wondering how I’m going to do this with no transportation?  Yeah.  Me, too.)