Goals and Passions or What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

I've spent a fair portion of my life flitting from pillar to post, not really knowing what to do with my energy and ambition. I went to work every day and got a paycheck, and dabbled in a few things here and there. I was always involved with horses, and rode and trained and taught lessons off and on for most of my life. Once my daughter E came along, I shifted my focus into raising her, as her dad left the scene before she was a year old. (My decision, not his.) My only brother died in 1986 at age 27, but we've kept in contact with his wife and daughter since his death. They moved to Idaho and bought property, and raise horses. We went to visit them the first time when E was 6 or 7, and so to prepare her to spend time with their horses, I got her started in horseback riding lessons. That was it--she was hooked. She's been riding ever since, and we got her first horse (The Little Brown Pony) when she was 10.

We love to watch all the medical shows, and blood and guts and the coroner's office are all fascinating viewing as far as we're concerned. E's love of the medical field, combined with her love of horses (and all animals) naturally lead her to be interested in veterinary medicine. In fact my brother's daughter is a practicing veterinarian in Washington state, so E could have had a good "in" in the field. But over the course of time, she has become much more focused on her riding. We bought her first real show horse three years ago, and even though he's got his issues and is not the horse of her dreams, he took her to the next level of riding, and she found out that the thrill and excitement of jumping big takes her to a place she's never experienced before. She absolutely loves it, and throws her entire being into all aspects of improving her skills.

We go to the barn every day to work our horses as well as the horses in training with us. I do most of the planning, teaching, and oversight and E is the rider. We discuss (ad nauseum) all aspects of our practice, and how we feel we're doing, and what plans we want to make for her riding, our clients, and our business overall. Being a somewhat pessimistic person by nature, I have learned from my daughter that I really need to just lighten up. My first response to many things is "no--not possible". She is just the opposite, and her response is "why not try it?". E has the lofty goal of someday (soon) riding on the US Olympic Equestrian team. When I first heard that I thought she was overreaching and would fail and be disappointed. But she was persistent, and then I wondered why I was so restrictive in my thinking. SOMEONE rides on the Olympic team--why not her? It's a hard road and will take a lot of time and effort, but she's not afraid of hard work and neither am I. The hardest part will be finding the right horse--that takes a lot of money. You either have to have it yourself, or have a client with money who wants a horse shown. Again, E has plans for that. She is writing a letter asking people and businesses to sponsor her. The worst they can do is say no, and if they say yes, she'll be that much closer to her goal.

E walked early (at 9 months) but started talking very late (almost 18 months). However, once the talking started, it has not EVER stopped (i.e. if she's awake, the mouth is moving), and the joke for a long time was that she was doing the color commentary of her life as she went. She talks even when no one is around. The main advantage in this for me is that if I just shut up, I hear absolutely everything that is going on in her life. She talks about everything, and one of her favorite subjects is how she feels sorry for her friends that don't have any kind of passion for something, anything, in their lives. This is another of the many reasons I love having kids, especially girls, spend their time at the barn. Whatever work you put into it, you get back in self-esteem. It also puts a major dent in the time spent in front of the TV, the refrigerator, and the computer. The best part for the girls is that their self-esteem is based on the satisfaction that comes from their own hard work, and not from whether some boy likes them or if they're in the popular group at school. I love my kid, but she definitely marches to her own drummer (middle school was not too pleasant for her), so the horses have given her a poise and self-confidence that she would have been hard-pressed to find elsewhere. This has helped E in every aspect of her life, and has given her a terrific ability to see what she wants to do and make plans on how to get there.

We've got our work cut out for us, but E is not afraid of a fast horse or a big fence, so now we just need to get the rest of the support system in place for her to reach her goals. She really wants to make a name for herself, and I know she will. Keep your eyes peeled--hopefully you'll be seeing that "knockout" kid from California in the Olympic news in the not-too-distant future.