A Different Path

I wrote a post once entitled Success vs Happiness. It was a pretty popular post for a while until what was like... a sudden influx of readers from France didn't like that post as much as a few others. Interesting.

I say I'd love to relive this day. But in truth, it was nerve wracking
and frustrating, and I was miserable until I got my score. 

The post was about recognizing that we often times put our happiness beyond our successes, thinking that once we are successful or once we achieve this certain goal we've set for ourselves, then we'll be happy. In the last year or so since I wrote that post, I've been taking more and more steps to being a happier person, to enjoying the journey for the sake of the journey and not making a beeline toward my goals, setting new goals, beelining towards those, and so on.

Some of these changes have happened and they're wonderful. I quit my horrible job and took a pay cut for what has turned out to be my dream job. I work with some pretty amazing people and I find what I do really rewarding. I'm trying new things more often and I've been working on talking less about what I want to do and just doing it. The WORK-life-HORSE balance is getting a bit more balanced out, where life is starting to grow and work is less stressful.

That leaves the horse side of things. And I had a massive realization about what horses mean to me and what I've been doing to myself these last few years.

At least the pictures turn out well right? I love this shot with my
shadbelly out behind me

I poured my life into getting my Gold medal on Rico. Nothing was too big a sacrifice for it. I worked throughout my Master's program to pay for lessons and shows (oh, and tuition, I left in a bit of debt). I didn't go on vacation, I didn't buy anything for myself other than what I needed to ride, I didn't even get a real hair cut in those couple of years of pushing. Everything I did was for that medal, for scores, for dressage. I started crossfit because I needed to be fitter and other than that, I didn't do any thing that would put my own physical health at risk (like snowboarding, which I finally did last year) just in case. I rode every single day without fail to keep Rico strong and sound. I didn't jump him or trail ride him or even ride him bareback very often to keep us on our regimented schedule. I didn't skip days because it was raining or I was tired or I was busy. Everything in my life was secondary to riding. I literally studied for finals while warming him up (we'd go on regimented 30 minute warm up walks) and any time not spent with the horse was spent making schedules and budgets and arrangements to get this all to work on a small salary while working through grad school.

And it paid off. I am a USDF Gold Medalist. I achieved it through weekly lessons (and no training rides unless you counted the day that Heidi got on for fifteen minutes and couldn't get Rico to do more ones than I could) alone and on a horse I'd trained from Training level.

He was fun to ride. And he was good in shows too. But I did not
have fun in shows, I was too stressed and worried about scores to
have any fun. 

I love dressage. I love it. I'm good at it and it intrigues me. I love talking with my dressage friends about dressage and I love taking dressage lessons from amazing dressage trainers to learn more about dressage. I love doing dressage even on horses who are wildly inappropriate for dressage or who "hate" dressage. I love the feeling of a horse's back up underneath me and a steady even connection on the reins. I love feeling a horse's first attempts at changes and cursing when I miscount in my tempis.

The next step in my dressage journey seemed clear: keep going. Move the goal posts. Yes you got your Gold, but do it again and again.  I bought what turned out to be a very nice young horse with a lot of potential. It was time to prove that I'm not a one-hit-wonder. That it wasn't just a fluke. Train the horse up, this time take your time and win a lot, this time score better, this time leave less holes in the horse's training.

And I had fun with TC, we had our fair share of good moments amongst many bad ones. He gave me a feeling in the bridle that I never have felt before. And hearing how fancy he was never got old. He is fancy, he's a really nice horse. I got super lucky in my horse search because he was not expensive.

But it was a double edged sword.

The interaction between TC being more and more difficult for me to ride (perhaps stemming from him needing to be in a stall with no turnout for his rehab or just being that sort of horse, I guess we'll find out if he stays sound) and me putting more and more pressure on myself, blaming myself for the troubles I was having, and harassing myself about my record, was just awful.

The more I struggled on him, the more I felt pressure to suck it up and deal with it. I had many a blog commenter tell me that this should be easy, that I'm a Gold Medalist and so therefore I'd be more successful than someone with less experience at putting movements on or dealing with his bad behavior. I had many an instructor yell at me because I "should know better" when I made a mistake. I was told several times by different people to "use my considerable experience" to ride through things that were TERRIFYING me. As if knowing how to ride a line of tempis ever prepared me to handle a horse that bolts. Even when things weren't scary, I was made to believe that there was something going horrifically wrong with my riding because "why are you doing that with your hands?!" (answer: I don't know, I have had three dressage lessons total since getting my Gold TWO YEARS AGO) or "why are you sitting crooked?" or what not.

And that's NOTHING compared to what I told myself. I had better not go to a show until I knew that I'd score above 65%. I mean that's just embarrassing. I'm supposed to be this amazing rider, right? Everyone puts Grand Prix riders up on these pedestals thinking that they can do no wrong, then when they come crashing down, they question how they even got there. Oh, her GP horse must have been super easy, or a schoolmaster, or it's a fluke. Every movement on TC felt like it had to be just so before I let it out in public, it was evidence of my years of training, evidence that I "knew better," evidence that I hadn't earned my Gold due to a fluke or because Rico was just so damn good (why was he so damn good? ME). It was because I was a good rider.

I love this horse. But I love him because he is my best friend and
he was so fun to ride, not because he was talented but because he
had the best mind. I could take him in the GP ring one day and ride
him bareback the next. But I didn't. 

I felt so much pressure, and add to that TC's constant stream of bad behavior and/or unsoundnesses. I felt like everything was crumbling out from under me. And this felt like evidence. Evidence that I'm not the rider I thought I was. I started wondering those same things- was Rico just *that* good, such a good horse that *anyone* could have done what I did? Was TC just too much horse, are Grand Prix riders allowed to have a horse who is too much horse? And honestly in the last six months, I've never felt like a worse rider. There's nothing like all these people who had known me during the years I had Rico telling me that I should be better.

About a week and a half ago, the day after TC went lame and I made the decision to put him in pasture after a bit of stall rest, I finally liberated myself from this prison I had felt stuck in for the last two years since getting my medal.

I quit dressage.

Don't panic. I'm quitting competitive dressage. For a little while at least- until I have a better attitude and relationship with the sport.

There's no winning in this sport with me anymore, not with the way I'm approaching it. Either I take TC to a show (well, not anymore, he's lame and won't let me ride him anyway) and I score at 70% and that's expected of me so it's a "well duh I'm a GP rider riding at Training on a fancy horse, obviously that's going to happen" moment. Or I go to a show and score a 65% and I feel like shit because TC is much nicer than that and I'm clearly a shit rider who can't train a talented horse like him to score better than a measly [insert any score under whatever unreasonable threshold I give myself].

Having him suddenly snatched away from me by yet another injury and then me giving up on us allowed me to really think.

I don't... want to do this to myself. Or my family or friends. You know what I want to do?

Trail ride with my friends. Ride bareback. Jump something. Go cross country schooling. Ride bridleless. Try a new discipline. Take a week off of riding because I got busy or felt like it or went on vacation and not be afraid for my life or my horse's soundness. And finally, NOT give up everything non-horsey in my life to ride.

And I want to do dressage. But I want to do it because I love it. Because I want to feel my horse get stronger and more coordinated. Because lead changes are fun. And half pass isn't as fun but looks cool from the ground and I love media so I'll do it.

His passage was amazing to ride. But what
was not amazing was the adrenaline that would
pulse through me as I worried about him stopping in it.

All this time I had continued to put success before happiness to the detriment of the latter. I was not happy. I do not enjoy going to the barn to ride TC. I don't. It's not fun to ride him when I am afraid of him either hurting himself or bolting or rearing. It's not fun to listen to people who think they're consoling me or helping me or encouraging me but are really just insulting me. It's not fun to have to say no to seeing friends or going places because I can't leave him without either paying someone to ride him or putting myself in danger when I do get back on him.

So all I wanted this week was to tell Kate that I'd meet her at Fresno this last weekend and offer to buy her lunch in exchange for her reminding me that I should keep my leg on when I'm cantering toward an intro level cross country jump. And all I wanted to do when it was raining was to pet a pony on the nose and tell them I'd see them when the rain stopped. And all I wanted to do when I only had thirty minutes at the barn before work was to jump on bareback and wander around the ranch. 

But that horse I'm on in my mind in that situation was not TC. It was never TC. Without even acknowledging that he scares the hell out of me and I would never ride him bareback or not exercise him every single day or take him out on cross country, even to wander around on if we couldn't jump. He's lame! Even without the new injury and the stifle and whatever, his suspensory will prevent him from ever doing anything like that.

So sure I'd give anything to go back to this day. But maybe I would
have more fun this time around. 

I didn't make a mistake buying him though, don't get me wrong. I had no idea that I even wanted to have the horse I'm describing. The sort of horse who I can do more than just dressage with, the sort of horse I don't want to compete. Because my one track mind prevented me from seeing what true happiness (without competition success) meant for me. Even when I imagined my next horse (after TC) being this sort of horse, I always imagined that TC would be the way to get that horse- to sell him and buy an all around horse.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much in my life is about achievements and goals rather than happiness. As long as I'm working toward something, I can distract myself enough from the pain of working toward it with the idea that the pain will be better afterward. If I put in the time now with TC, he will be amazing and I'll sell him for lots of money and he'll finish up my CLS stars and get me my freestyle medals and THEN I can buy a fun all around pony because they're so cute and I just want to ride something for fun.

Life is short, buy the pony. Well, TC isn't going anywhere any time soon so that fictional pony won't exist for quite a long time, but my goals have officially shifted and I'm going to take a break from competitive dressage. I mean, my record shows that I'm now entering year 3 of not showing, but I'm talking about goal-wise, pressure-wise.

New goals miiiiiiight include something fun with this guy.

There are no longer any dressage goals on my 2017 calendar. And for the first time in a long time, I'm really excited about my future with horses for the sake of the horses, rather than for the sake of success. I'll just have to live vicariously through all of the blogs I follow for my competition itch. Meanwhile, I'm going to go find something to hop on bareback... when it stops raining.