January 2013
(If you want to skip this part then go ahead. I wrote the upper part so that everyone can understand where I am coming from better and put themselves in my shoes)
What was my new year’s resolution? Make friends.
After moving to a city in Michigan from a rural place in West Virginia with very limited things to do, I found myself in Michigan being overwhelmed with frustration, challenges, uncomfortableness, new aggressive drivers and often people that would comment on my southern accent.
First week of college in spring term was of course easy, but finding friends and people to connect to is rough. Last semester was my first semester being at Michigan. It was horrible for me trying to find others to relate to. I only added one person from my college on facebook. I felt like a total outsider with nothing to communicate to them. They would talk about the area and previous or current teachers. The only thing I found myself trying to jump in at was asking more about the hard teachers so I wouldn’t end up with them in the future. I guess it makes it harder since I don’t live in the dorms. I live with my sister and her boyfriend in an apartment. At least I have them to talk to. I’ve been getting used to Michigan now and decided I like it here better than West Virginia. The aggressive driving is kind of a stress buster compared to WV’s laid back slow driving. I love the feeling of getting a yellow light and running it instead of stopping for it like in West Virginia lol.
Well now it’s the third week of January 2013 and the more my other friends fill up their facebook with opportunities and friend filled pictures, the more I found myself sitting here saying, “What am I doing wrong? I’m in a city with more opportunities and I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself when others could be looking at me as a possible role model. I have family members looking up to me. They are always asking what I’m doing. Do I really want the same reply of ‘oh just college.’ No I don’t. I want to do something I love and help others with it.”
I ran it through my head quickly. What are things I love? I started naming off a bunch of summer activities. I’m already tired of the cold weather and it’s just beginning haha. Then my mind screamed, “Horses!” That’s it. That is something that West Virginia didn’t really offer me that Michigan would. I began looking up lessons. They were a bit expensive for my taste. Being a college student, I don’t have that kind of money unless I have a job of some sort. It would be hard to budget that. I began getting discouraged and impatient that I’d have to wait until April to take horse lessons with my birthday money. It would last me until my summer aid kicked in. Then I could budget that to take lessons through the summer too.
I sat there the rest of the day after my homework, reading up on the horse forum and looking at horse ads for some reason. I couldn’t even afford lessons, let alone a horse. Why was I even looking at them for? Must be a girl thing since my sister can’t get a house at the moment but looks at houses online anyways. Lol.
For some reason after I thought that, I had a good gut feeling about the rest of my year. I wanted to switch the tables all around and grasp the world. I wanted to work hard and have life shift its curveballs elsewhere. I wanted to create a positive sphere around myself that was so intense that everyone around me could feel it and automatically be attracted to sit next to me and get to know me more. After shifting through a few more threads at the horse forum, I came across a few words that my mind pieced together. “Rescue” “Help out” “Ground Training” “Manners”.
January 17th and 18th 2013
My mind sparked that I should look up a rescue and volunteer. Somehow I managed to find one barn. I examined their website and facebook page. They had a lot of positive reviews and figured this was the place for me. On a spur of the moment, without even thinking, I immediately messaged them.
An hour later I got a reply asking my info so they could have their volunteer coordinator contact me. I replied back casually but then it suddenly hit me after I pressed the send button. I was really doing this. They were really going to let me volunteer and work with horses over there. They didn’t reject me saying they already have too many volunteers or anything like that. Then again, it is freakin freezing outside and they might be low on volunteers.
Either way, I got my foot in the door and I got extremely excited.
Around 8pm the volunteer coordinator mailed me. I was so jittery and excited, my mind was so crazy happy that I couldn’t even remember or find where the reply button was for a few moments. lol we exchanged a few messages before she gave me a time and address to come help out and show me around! The date is tomorrow. I am so thrilled. One side of my brain coaches me to think through the hard work I’m going to make soooo many happy friends and have sooo much good times and everything will be rainbows, sunshine and hooves. But the other side of my brain laughs at that thought and says to me that I should get ready to be sore, dirty, and heartbroken with very odd friends. When I put the two sides of my brain together, I know both are wrong and that the only way to find out is to wait and see.
I hope tomorrow goes okay!
January 19th 2013
I rarely talk to myself in my car driving along, but this morning when going along the road to the horse rescue, I was chatting to myself like crazy. I kept telling myself, “WOW it is SO pretty out here!” When I arrived, the sun was shining brightly on the rescue and I felt so nervous that I had to pee! I parked my car and stepped out, I looked around but it was very silent. It was unusual for me because all the barns im used to were filled with people and horses all over. The first person to greet me was actually the owner of the whole place. I had no idea I was talking to the owner of the whole rescue until my volunteer coordinator showed up and greeted me. She introduced me to everyone at the barn working and took me into the tack room to sign a liability form of course. She explained a time sheet for the volunteers to sign in and out of just to keep track, and then showed me around the place. I expected horses with better manners, but then I realized a lot of these horses were about to be dog food or had been neglected and some not even broke. They needed work.
By the time I got into a field with a bunch of drafts, and had one get in my personal space and step on my foot even though I was set to the side of it, I was starting to question my ability to work with these horses. There was a girl beside me who helped push the draft off my foot. She could tell I was nervous and felt kind of embarrassed. I told her I’m just glad the horse didn’t put its whole weight on my foot and that I’d have to be more careful looks like. That girl told me her story, she was a few years younger than me and we had a lot in common! We loved black horses, especially Friesians. She told me she wanted to go swimming in the summer with the horses if they would let her, and I immediately got excited and said that would be amazing! I really connected with her. We started talking about filming our horse adventures together and I finally realized my resolution for the year was starting to come true. I was making friends!
The more I roamed around, groomed horses, raked up some hay and got used to the atmosphere, I decided this place was perfect for me. Out of 59 horses that were there, I only seemed to favor one named Aiden, but he was already owned and currently had a sheath infection. Poor thing. Lol he is my favorite at the moment and gave me a neck hug when I was grooming him. I guess me not being connected to a horse is good right now. I have to remember to focus on my college instead of riding and working with my own horse all day. It is a lot of commitment that I don’t have right now. I also began thinking as the day went on, So what if a horse stepped on my foot? It’ll happen plenty of times in the future I’m sure right? And yes, I have much insecurity with working with a lot of unruly horses. I’m only a beginner after a few years of not riding and am really rusty on my caretaking skills. Already I could tell just by grooming them that they were testing me to see how much they could get away with. But I’m willing to learn the hardcore way! I mean, it is no challenge to catch an easy horse in the pasture. It is no challenge to tack and ride an old school horse, it is no challenge to groom a horse that loves and trusts everyone and expects treats all the time. There is no hard challenge for me and here offers that. I love challenges, even if this is the more stupid and dangerous way. I should be fine if I ask a lot of questions and observe how others train the horses. For my safety, observing is important!
Man, this journey should be a long one! :wink:
(If you want to skip this part then go ahead. I wrote the upper part so that everyone can understand where I am coming from better and put themselves in my shoes)
What was my new year’s resolution? Make friends.
After moving to a city in Michigan from a rural place in West Virginia with very limited things to do, I found myself in Michigan being overwhelmed with frustration, challenges, uncomfortableness, new aggressive drivers and often people that would comment on my southern accent.
First week of college in spring term was of course easy, but finding friends and people to connect to is rough. Last semester was my first semester being at Michigan. It was horrible for me trying to find others to relate to. I only added one person from my college on facebook. I felt like a total outsider with nothing to communicate to them. They would talk about the area and previous or current teachers. The only thing I found myself trying to jump in at was asking more about the hard teachers so I wouldn’t end up with them in the future. I guess it makes it harder since I don’t live in the dorms. I live with my sister and her boyfriend in an apartment. At least I have them to talk to. I’ve been getting used to Michigan now and decided I like it here better than West Virginia. The aggressive driving is kind of a stress buster compared to WV’s laid back slow driving. I love the feeling of getting a yellow light and running it instead of stopping for it like in West Virginia lol.
Well now it’s the third week of January 2013 and the more my other friends fill up their facebook with opportunities and friend filled pictures, the more I found myself sitting here saying, “What am I doing wrong? I’m in a city with more opportunities and I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself when others could be looking at me as a possible role model. I have family members looking up to me. They are always asking what I’m doing. Do I really want the same reply of ‘oh just college.’ No I don’t. I want to do something I love and help others with it.”
I ran it through my head quickly. What are things I love? I started naming off a bunch of summer activities. I’m already tired of the cold weather and it’s just beginning haha. Then my mind screamed, “Horses!” That’s it. That is something that West Virginia didn’t really offer me that Michigan would. I began looking up lessons. They were a bit expensive for my taste. Being a college student, I don’t have that kind of money unless I have a job of some sort. It would be hard to budget that. I began getting discouraged and impatient that I’d have to wait until April to take horse lessons with my birthday money. It would last me until my summer aid kicked in. Then I could budget that to take lessons through the summer too.
I sat there the rest of the day after my homework, reading up on the horse forum and looking at horse ads for some reason. I couldn’t even afford lessons, let alone a horse. Why was I even looking at them for? Must be a girl thing since my sister can’t get a house at the moment but looks at houses online anyways. Lol.
For some reason after I thought that, I had a good gut feeling about the rest of my year. I wanted to switch the tables all around and grasp the world. I wanted to work hard and have life shift its curveballs elsewhere. I wanted to create a positive sphere around myself that was so intense that everyone around me could feel it and automatically be attracted to sit next to me and get to know me more. After shifting through a few more threads at the horse forum, I came across a few words that my mind pieced together. “Rescue” “Help out” “Ground Training” “Manners”.
January 17th and 18th 2013
My mind sparked that I should look up a rescue and volunteer. Somehow I managed to find one barn. I examined their website and facebook page. They had a lot of positive reviews and figured this was the place for me. On a spur of the moment, without even thinking, I immediately messaged them.
An hour later I got a reply asking my info so they could have their volunteer coordinator contact me. I replied back casually but then it suddenly hit me after I pressed the send button. I was really doing this. They were really going to let me volunteer and work with horses over there. They didn’t reject me saying they already have too many volunteers or anything like that. Then again, it is freakin freezing outside and they might be low on volunteers.
Either way, I got my foot in the door and I got extremely excited.
Around 8pm the volunteer coordinator mailed me. I was so jittery and excited, my mind was so crazy happy that I couldn’t even remember or find where the reply button was for a few moments. lol we exchanged a few messages before she gave me a time and address to come help out and show me around! The date is tomorrow. I am so thrilled. One side of my brain coaches me to think through the hard work I’m going to make soooo many happy friends and have sooo much good times and everything will be rainbows, sunshine and hooves. But the other side of my brain laughs at that thought and says to me that I should get ready to be sore, dirty, and heartbroken with very odd friends. When I put the two sides of my brain together, I know both are wrong and that the only way to find out is to wait and see.
I hope tomorrow goes okay!
January 19th 2013
I rarely talk to myself in my car driving along, but this morning when going along the road to the horse rescue, I was chatting to myself like crazy. I kept telling myself, “WOW it is SO pretty out here!” When I arrived, the sun was shining brightly on the rescue and I felt so nervous that I had to pee! I parked my car and stepped out, I looked around but it was very silent. It was unusual for me because all the barns im used to were filled with people and horses all over. The first person to greet me was actually the owner of the whole place. I had no idea I was talking to the owner of the whole rescue until my volunteer coordinator showed up and greeted me. She introduced me to everyone at the barn working and took me into the tack room to sign a liability form of course. She explained a time sheet for the volunteers to sign in and out of just to keep track, and then showed me around the place. I expected horses with better manners, but then I realized a lot of these horses were about to be dog food or had been neglected and some not even broke. They needed work.
By the time I got into a field with a bunch of drafts, and had one get in my personal space and step on my foot even though I was set to the side of it, I was starting to question my ability to work with these horses. There was a girl beside me who helped push the draft off my foot. She could tell I was nervous and felt kind of embarrassed. I told her I’m just glad the horse didn’t put its whole weight on my foot and that I’d have to be more careful looks like. That girl told me her story, she was a few years younger than me and we had a lot in common! We loved black horses, especially Friesians. She told me she wanted to go swimming in the summer with the horses if they would let her, and I immediately got excited and said that would be amazing! I really connected with her. We started talking about filming our horse adventures together and I finally realized my resolution for the year was starting to come true. I was making friends!
The more I roamed around, groomed horses, raked up some hay and got used to the atmosphere, I decided this place was perfect for me. Out of 59 horses that were there, I only seemed to favor one named Aiden, but he was already owned and currently had a sheath infection. Poor thing. Lol he is my favorite at the moment and gave me a neck hug when I was grooming him. I guess me not being connected to a horse is good right now. I have to remember to focus on my college instead of riding and working with my own horse all day. It is a lot of commitment that I don’t have right now. I also began thinking as the day went on, So what if a horse stepped on my foot? It’ll happen plenty of times in the future I’m sure right? And yes, I have much insecurity with working with a lot of unruly horses. I’m only a beginner after a few years of not riding and am really rusty on my caretaking skills. Already I could tell just by grooming them that they were testing me to see how much they could get away with. But I’m willing to learn the hardcore way! I mean, it is no challenge to catch an easy horse in the pasture. It is no challenge to tack and ride an old school horse, it is no challenge to groom a horse that loves and trusts everyone and expects treats all the time. There is no hard challenge for me and here offers that. I love challenges, even if this is the more stupid and dangerous way. I should be fine if I ask a lot of questions and observe how others train the horses. For my safety, observing is important!
Man, this journey should be a long one! :wink: