Progress

In the recent past, I posted about how my idiotic, neurotic fancies were coming between me and enjoying my ride time. Well, I've been working on it since then, and I think I'm doing pretty well.

I've been riding 3-5 days a week, and it's getting easier. The hot weather lately has been helping, pony is far too lazy to break a sweat acting up when it's 90 degrees outside. I still feel myself tensing up and starting to freak out when a clanky, rumbling truck drives by us, or the barn owner's husband decides to mow the lawn outside the "scary corner" of the arena. I'm still far from the confident rider I'd like to be (and once was), but baby steps.

I've come to the conclusion that what scares me is being out of control. If my horse spooks or panics, I am not in control. That frightens me. Everything that I fear boils down to that one issue. Control. I fear that I won't be able to control my horse, and that I won't be able to control my own body to do the right thing at the right time (like keep my ass on my horse). I don't like being out of control. It's scary.

I have been doing better, though. The "OMG! What if..!?!?!" moments have been less frequent. Talking to my horse has helped me through the times when they do rear their ugly heads. I suppose I'm really talking to myself, but it matters not.

I've also been singing to my horse. I'm really quite bad, but it's difficult to be tense and worried when you're singing. One of these days I'm going to put my ipod and some speakers in a saddle bag so I have something to sing along with.

I used to do that all the time on trail rides. I've surprised more than one hiker by cantering down the trail with Sublime or Eminem playing at full volume (usually with me singing along). I plugged portable speakers into my Walkman (couldn't used a CD player, it skipped), put the whole deal into a plastic baggie and zipped it up in a saddle bag. It was pretty awesome and never seemed to bother Cherry any.

So I guess the point is that my efforts to get over myself and my fears are working, albeit slowly. Some days are more of a struggle than others. Sometimes I throw on the saddle and head out with no worries at all, other times I check and double check my tack, scan the area for potentially scary objects, and spend way more time than necessary fretting about how stiff Cherry is that day. Baby steps.