Three years ago I spent an
entire summer traveling around the country showing my horse and having a
fantastic time. However, at the end of
the year my horse, Johnny, sustained an injury that sidelined us. The injury was difficult to diagnose, so I
frequently began to think he had recovered only to take him to a horse show and
spend the entire time (and all of my money) in the vet tent. Horse showing - once the highlight of my life
- became a torturous endeavor, but I continued to believe that the fun was
always just around the next turn. The
fun was on the other side of one more shockwave treatment; one more
chiropractic appointment; one more corrective shoeing. Before I knew it, a year had gone by; a year
in which I’d planned a wedding and gotten married, and this awful, self-induced
black cloud had shaded the whole thing. I had spent an entire year of my
twenties agonizing about how to get my horse back in the show ring.
Then one day, in a sudden
moment of clarity, I realized it was over.
My dream was dead and it was time to face the music. Additionally, I was
suffering from a serious case of
burnout.
Driving an hour each way to
the trainer’s barn five days a week only to stare at my frustrated horse and
what-could-have-been was excruciating.
It wore me down, and I knew I was going to end up in a straight jacket
if I kept it up. I brought Johnny home,
thinking I’d let him “be a horse” while simultaneously letting myself be a
human. A real one. The kind that sleeps at night instead of
laying awake wondering where she could come up with the money to do just one more MRI…just one more. Once Johnny
was home, it didn’t take long before magical things started happening. I practiced jumping on my retired horse that
had never really jumped anything in his life. I started riding bareback like I had when I
was a kid. I rode the boys down the
trail with my mom. Johnny made a
miraculous recovery, and I started jumping him again. I sat under a tree in the pasture and watched
my horses graze. I fell back in love
with my first love, the horses.
Fast forward a couple of
years. I’ve now got four of these rascals.
I spend my days taking impeccable care of them. I’ve spent the last two years waking up every
day and rushing down to feed, drinking my tepid coffee in the cold barn, leading
horses to turnouts, hovering over them for hours because they are semi-suicidal
and not to be trusted, carting hay and water to paddocks, cleaning stalls,
sweeping, scrubbing buckets, leading horses back from turnouts (in a very
specific order!), grooming, riding, sweeping, clipping, sweeping, feeding,
sweeping, stuffing hay nets, changing blankets, dragging the arena, mowing the
paddocks, night checking…and, of course, sweeping.
Hey, Thomas Edison, I’ll tell
you what is often missed by people because it’s dressed in overalls and looks
like work: me.
I’m tired.
No. I’m tired. I’m aware that it’s an obnoxious first-world
problem. I know it’s absurd that poor
Courtney’s show horses are exhausting her, but they are. I am burnt out in a way that is reminiscent
of the Johnny Injury Saga of 2012. I’m
losing it. And by “it” I mean my sanity,
any desire to ride, and if I’m being honest, that love of horses that drives me
to do all of this in the first place.
This expensive hobby has become
a career…a career that I pay for! A
career that I pay for that, for two whole years, has kept me from even being in
the general vicinity of my workaholic husband on the one or two days per week
on which he is able. It’s kept me from
traveling, from seeing my family, from being a regular girl that has clean hair
and painted nails, from keeping in touch with friends that I truly like. I’ve missed bachelorette parties and baby
showers and just regular old girls’ nights.
It was always worth it to me,
and then one day this past November it just wasn’t anymore. I missed my husband. I missed my family. I missed those carefree days of having
one-too-many drinks and staying out a bit too late without the nagging voice in
the back of my mind saying, “Careful, Courtney.
Even if you take the day off from riding, you’ve got 5 hours of manual
labor starting at sunup tomorrow…and every day after that.” I missed having a weekend! TWO WHOLE DAYS OFF!! What was that like? Nate and I chose not to have kids so that we
could always have the luxury of spontaneity, and quiet winter days by the fire,
and sun-drenched vacations in exotic locations…and yet, we weren’t doing any of
those things.
It took me a long time to
admit it, but something had to give. I
love my boys and they aren’t going anywhere, but there are ways to take care of
horses that don’t demand nearly the work that I am required to put in. Things like stalls with attached turnouts…and
hot wire…and automatic waterers…and dare I say, winter coats? We did some research and happened upon a
small farm that was available for rent in un-frozen, un-muddy South
Carolina. The setup was ideal, the
flight from NYC was short, and I couldn’t sign the lease fast enough. We shut down the farm in New York, and jammed
the entire menagerie into the truck and trailer.
It was a long, arduous drive
with screaming cats, flatulent dogs, stir-crazy horses, and roosters crowing at
every Truck Stop. Icy New York mornings and lugging 80 pounds of hot water to turnouts a
quarter mile from the barn wasn’t looking so terrible at 3am, in the 14th
hour of the drive. Still, shortly after we arrived I turned
my boys out in their big, grass paddocks. They ran and played in good, solid
footing, and the whole drive and weeks of planning were suddenly completely worth it.
It’s only been a few days,
and I’m still trying to devise the perfect system, but the boys are so
happy. It warms my cold, hard heart
to see them so, and as if that’s not enough, I simply have to open
the Dutch doors in the mornings and send them on their merry way to turnout. “See y’all tonight!” (Y’all see what I did there? I’m trying hard to fit in.) They run, but they don’t slip and fall in ice
or mud. They decide they want to go
inside, and they just…do. They don’t
panic-run. They don’t kick or scream or
squeal or bang on the gates to force me to come running, halter in hand. They
also don’t stand in stalls 20 hours per day.
They also don’t chew things out of boredom.
You know what else they don’t
do?
They don’t care if they all
have matching blankets. They don’t care
if their matching blankets match their water buckets that match the trim of the
barn and the doormat and the damn haynets.
They don’t care. As much as the
horses have made life difficult for me by refusing
to behave in turnout no matter how hard I try, I have made it difficult for
myself by being a type-A, anal-retentive horse snob. They must all be slick. They must all be shiny. They must all be fit, and clipped, and clean.
And…and…and…
Burnout. Complete burnout. I even reached a point where I would
occasionally have to consciously remind myself to breathe. I think that’s pretty much a textbook anxiety
disorder. A self-induced anxiety disorder!!
So I find myself here in sunny South Carolina, all alone in a strange
place that is very different from home, but I have happy horses, coffee with my
husband on the mornings that he’s here, and multiple vacations to plan. I’m already breathing involuntarily, and
today, for the first time in two months, I patted Johnny affectionately on the
rump and thought, “Maybe a ride would be fun.”
