I Cry a Lot

I really need to get back into doing blog things, other than just posting, which I don't even do that often. Mainly, reading other people's blogs. I try to do this on a regular basis, but I still don't feel like I'm doing it enough. Although apparently my brother has started blogging on a regular basis, so I'm definitely going to have to get in on that action.

Also, Ken's parents are on vacation. Which means all the time I should be spending on moving out, I'm actually spending on living at his place. It's really slightly less than productive.

Anyways, I've been promising to keep up with updates when something actually happens, so here I am.

Sunday night, me and Ken decided to go out and saddle up a horse for me. Why we decided to do this in the evening, just as the sun was setting when the bugs are t their worst, I don't really know. Probably because I haven't ridden in a while, and Ken was actually in the mood to go out there, so I wasn't about to stop us.

We brushed and saddled Jake, cause so far he's the only one I've ridden. Ken also sprayed the other horses with bug spray, which they don't entirely appreciate, but I'm sure they like the break from the bugs for a while.

I walked Jake around for a little bit, but ever since I went riding last time (which was a while ago) I've been thinking about getting better at trotting. I got Jake to trot a couple times last time, but I didn't really get into the rhythm of it. I just kinda bounced around on top, which made it feel a lot like an amusement park ride but without a safety bar to hold on to.

So we're not really sure what happened next. Probably a combination of him being slightly agitated by bugs, and me riding with my boots for the first time, which probably felt different than my shoes, and the saddle not being on quite as tight as it probably should have been...anyways, the point is, I'm not really sure what happened, but I went to nudge Jake into a trot, and he kinda took off on me. And when he got to the fence and swung to the side, I fell off.

Now, falling off a horse is a different experience than I've ever had before. I don't actually remember the falling part. I remember being on Jake has he turned at the fence, and then I was on the ground. I faintly recall having a vague thought something along the lines of "Horses are really tall." before the pain kicked in.

I heard Ken talk to Jake, and go calm him down and take his saddle off. I think I was registering whether my body was still working. And since all my limbs were bending the right way, at the right places, and I wasn't in any excruciating pain, I concluded that I wasn't badly hurt. The side of my back down to my butt hurt pretty bad, where I hit the ground. But it was mostly just a bad throbbing pain, nothing super sharp.

I believe it was about the time Ken came over to me that I started to cry. At first it was mostly just the first feeling of pain and the whole shock of the fall that started it. But that reason for crying really only lasted maybe a minute. Which for some reason I seem to think it should have lasted more. But more on that later.

I feel pretty silly about the main reasons I was crying. To be fair, when I start crying, I tend to continue crying on pretty irrational reasons. I was really disappointed that I did something wrong, and how this is the second time Jake's taken off on me, and how he probably really doesn't like me, and how Ken's never going to want to put me on a horse again, and mostly just how I fell of Jake, and that Jake threw me off in general.

When I calmed down a little, Ken corrected most of these thoughts without me having to voice any of them. I also corrected a few of them myself. This is the second time Jake's taken off on me, but the first time was a problem with the saddle, not necessarily anything I did (although I did hit his backside when I was mounting him that time...but that's not the point). Ken says Jake does like me, and horses generally do feel a little bad when their riders fall off, and they understand that something didn't go right. I don't think he specifically said he would take me riding again, but I sort of came to that conclusion myself.

And finally he told me that Jake didn't intentionally try to throw me off, something just didn't go right. And to be honest, I probably should have walked him around more before trying to get him into a trot. But I was just so excited to be on a horse again! Which I wonder if that may have resulted in me kicking him a little harder than last time...but then, I was also using last time as an example, when I had to nudge him quite a few times to finally encourage him to trot. Silly horse.

But no harm was done to me, besides having a sore back for the last couple days. Like Dad says, I'm young, I can take it. Mom got weepy when I told her the story, but Mom gets weepy about everything.

After I stopped crying, Ken went out to clean up the saddle and let the horses go. He just brought me straight inside and left them all in the corral. I asked to go out, because I had this urge to see Jake again. Maybe this is common when somebody falls off a horse. Ken said he was going to leave that for the morning, but I could come out if I wanted to. So I did, and as soon as I saw Jake I started crying again. I still felt bad for...falling off him? Honestly, my dominant feeling at the moment was wanting to apologize to him for falling off.

So I started crying all over again, which made me feel super ridiculous. But Ken let me stand there and hug him for a while, and brush the bugs off him. Then we let the horses out, and I went inside to fill out a self-evaluation for my annual review at work.

Anyways, it was an odd experience, because that night I basically alternated between thinking about how scary it really was having him take off on me, and wanting to just get back up on that saddle (literally) and try it again. I mean, maybe not try trotting right away again. But I definitely want to get on him and keep working at getting comfortable with him when he's walking, and hopefully build up to trotting. In a better way than I obviously did this time.

Even just an hour or so after falling, when Ken was telling me how he's not sure about Jake, since he's on of the oldest of their horses and had the most training, he usually puts new riders on him, but lately he's had a few people fall off him. I told him I'd ride Jake again. And I'm looking forward to riding Jake again.

I'm going to try not to over think this whole thing too much, since I have a terrible time of doing that. But it was definitely a new experience, so I figured it deserved telling in full.

Side story: just as I was starting to finish crying in the house, I realized the inside seam of my pants had ripped while falling off. I mentioned this to Ken, and he made a joke that we're fix it using a piece of Jake's hide. This joke sent me into a full round of hysterical laughter, mixed with a new round of hysterical sobbing. It had to be one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had, and I wonder what Ken was thinking of it. As soon as my body was willing to let me speak again, I told Ken that Jake really wouldn't like me after that.

~Calminaiel~

"But it wasn't just talking, it was crazy menopausal talking."