Sometimes Timing Isn’t Everything

I’ve always been a planner. Perhaps not the most productive one, as many of such plans centered around my social calendar, but a planner nonetheless. When I moved to a different city earlier this year, I had a plan for my riding.

I had been horseless for about two years and had only been riding inconsistently at best, so I made a plan because I knew that riding had made me the happiest in the past, and I wanted to get back to that state of mind.

When I arrived in Kansas City, I began looking for a trainer who would allow me to come out and take lessons even though I was without a horse. I eventually found one, who I have only known for a short time but have come to really appreciate as a coach. I approached my lessons with the attitude that this was the missing piece to my move, and that they would be instrumental to my ultimate happiness in a new place.

What I didn’t consider, though, were all of the other things happening in my life. To get on a more personal note here for a moment, I began doing some research on my adoption from South Korea about a year ago, and it has been a journey incomparable to any other in my short life. I tend to be an impatient person, and I tend to deal with setbacks rather childishly at times when I don’t get results right away. Instant gratification, anyone?

To make a very long story short, the adoption research has brought up a lot of unaddressed emotions and issues that I have, for the last 28 years, suppressed. It’s been a very trying and exhausting process, and I still do not have the information I seek. It’s made me aware of the fact that I needed to delve deeper into myself to come to some terms with a lot of things that have happened, and that I can no longer mask or hide these emotions.

My point is, yes riding makes me happy. It makes me elated and makes me feel complete. However, when I couldn’t quite figure out why beginning to ride again was not “doing the trick”, I realized that there are other things that need to be fixed before I can find that sort of complete happiness and peace that comes from knowing who you are.

I always thought that moving to a new city was a way to start over and really move forward with a life that had become a bit stagnant up until that point. I thought that riding would be the last piece of the puzzle, and while it was definitely a big piece, it’s not the most important one right now. It’s a tough thing to say! My life essentially revolves around horses, just not in the same ways as some others.

Yes, I spend my days reading about horses, learning about them, writing about them, and thinking about them. I would never trade that opportunity for anything, ever. It was difficult to decide to take a (hopefully brief) step back from riding in order to focus on bigger things, because I told myself that unless I was riding I wouldn’t be a complete person. But I’ve learned that to be untrue, and it’s helped me approach my situation with more zeal and passion.

Sometimes timing isn’t everything. You can plan, think, dream, and hope that all of your ideas come to fruition, but that may not always happen when you want them to. I know that I soon enough will be back in the saddle and able to focus on my riding for once instead of having a million other thoughts swirling around. In the meantime, I just have to remember that life is a series of puzzle pieces and, while you may not find the right fit immediately, with patience and hard work you will eventually find yourself with a complete picture.

Go riding.

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