Hello lovelies!
So we're coming close to the final segment of Summer Camp Shenanigans for this year, and let me just say I've had a lot of fun writing them. When I came home, I was having trouble remembering what memories happened on which day, and writing these has organized them pretty well.
We're coming up on Wednesday, which is where things start to get a little more...how do I put this? Well, they get a little more interesting.
So Wednesday morning started off like any other. Wake up, get dressed, go eat breakfast. Then we walked down to the barn for riding.
We were having a trail ride that day. Now, I don't know about you, but I absolutely adore trail rides, for reasons I couldn't explain until the end of the week. But that's not relevant right now.
Now, the counselors had us split into two groups from the beginning, and then each group split into another two groups based on whether they were riding English or Western (I was Western and rode in the second half). The first half got to go on a trail ride before we did, and when they came back, the girl who was riding Niner before me mentioned that they'd been trotting on the trail, and he had started to canter (just something Niner does, he does love his trail rides).
And that freaked me out.
All the things I thought I'd gotten over came rushing up to the surface, and by the time I got out to the ring, I was a nervous wreck. And then they called me up to the mounting block, and I burst into tears.
Well, that went well.
My counselor (who was also my riding instructor) offered me the option of sitting the trail ride out. But I insisted on riding, and saddled up anyway.
So we went on the trail ride, and the other riding instructor (and another one of my counselors) had to tell me to lengthen my reins (give the horse more slack, for non-equestrians) because I kept them super-short all ride. Yeah, I keep my horse on a really short rein when I'm nervous.
But we rode, and Niner rode me into a few tree branches, and no other massive horse drama happened, which is always a good thing, because my horse drama has always happened on Wednesdays. Getting stepped on, having the horse rear underneath me, freaking out about horses... Wednesday is not a good riding day for me!
The trail ride was nice. We didn't do any trotting on the trail, which was good because I don't think I would have reacted well if we had. When we got back to the ring though, there was this really tiny hill that we had to go up to reach the ring, and of course, every single horse trotted over it. By the time we got there, though, I was just like, "Okay, we got this." and we trotted up the hill.
Then there was lunch. Wednesday's lunch was by far the best lunch because I sat with one of my friends (who we will call Fiona) and the counselor in charge of the challenge tower (who went by Loki, and I can say that on the internet because all the staff have camp names anyway). We had breadsticks and pizza and there were little containers of marinara, and the counselor sitting next to me (who wasn't Loki) dropped her marinara and got a little bit on me, and then apologized profusely about it. And then we had Jello for dessert, and I poked it for a really, really long time because it jiggled, and Loki stuck a spoon on her nose and we all tried, but it didn't go well. But hey. It was fun.
I honestly don't remember what we did the rest of the day. I think we went tie-dyeing and I tie-dyed a bandana.
And normally I would stop around dinner time, but there was something important that happened around bedtime.
While everyone was taking showers, I was talking to Annie about what happened in the ring. She told me that the best thing to do would be to tell the counselors about my issue, and she offered to tell them for me but said she thought that it would be best if it came from me.
So I walked up to my patrol leader and told her I had to tell her something.
We ended up standing in the big common room and I told her and my riding instructor everything. By the end of my explanation, I was in tears for the second time that day.
Basically my issue was that I was afraid of horses. Not horses on the ground, and not horses in the saddle, just the two minutes in between; mounting and such.
To be honest, there wasn't much they could do, and they told me that; since it was in my head, it had to be me that conquered it eventually. And they were actually really impressed that even though I was obviously pretty scared, I got up and rode anyway.
Just talking about it actually made me feel a lot better. And so we all went to bed.
And that was Wednesday for you. Definitely one of the more dramatic days, the way it always seems where I'm involved.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Love,
Glitter Girl
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