For as long as I can remember, my riding lessons have been filled with the order to, “Look up!” It isn’t that I find my hands particularly fascinating, but it’s just that when I concentrate on something, I tend to stare fixedly at it. My surroundings disappear, and it’s just me examining my fingers and begging them to stop moving so much. And that’s a problem.
There are obvious reasons this is an issue: I could run over someone or something, I could miss terribly at a jump, I could get off my line. But that’s not why I am writing this blog.
I am typing this (quietly) while my 4-month-old baby is asleep in his car seat. We just got back from getting his shots, and after the screams over the pain and unfairness of life, he finally fell asleep and I am not moving him.
I haven’t blogged in almost a year. It isn’t that anyone would have noticed, but more that I am in awe over how much has changed in that year.
I got pregnant.
I sold my one-star horse.
I got a new house (and moved the week I had the baby).
The greatest illusion in life might be that there is more time. Time to get things right.
As Americans we obsess over checklists and preparations for life events; we want to make sure things are right before we do things. I have friends that wanted to make a certain salary before proposing, or wanted to achieve a certain work milestone before getting their passport, or wanted to consistently place in the top three before investing in their dream destination event.
I am a competitive person and I like to win. However, I think I am particularly talented at losing. For me, being a good loser means that you can maintain a sense of perspective and still be a fun, positive person to be around all weekend.
Chronicle blogger and amateur eventer Kristin Carpenter joins the conversation that blogger Doug Payne started about the future of eventing.
When I first read Doug Payne’s piece, my immediate response was, “YES.”
Yes to opening up a discussion, yes to ideas to wrangle the sky-rocketing entry fees and widening the base, yes to ways to make our professionals’ lives easier in any capacity so that they can compete with the best in the world.
A year ago I was preparing for what I hoped to be my first advanced horse trial on my off-the-track Thoroughbred, Trance, but my partner of 12 years got injured at the last minute. I wrote about it in The Things That Time Steals, and in that blog I contemplated his retirement.
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