Relief

Back in college, I partially dislocated my left hip.  If anyone hears me grumping about my 'bad hip', that's the one I'm talking about.  At the time I was an uninsured student and options were pretty thin for something that wasn't life threatening (and didn't get me out of classes).  I ended up stretching in a desperate attempt to get my hip working again.

The pain when it went back into place as stunning, but the relief afterward?  Pure bliss.  All of a sudden the pressure and pain was gone.  Everything was back in its place.

That's what it felt like today when I was riding Fi bareback, working on her shoulder in to the left.  It took a couple days, since she's been jumping every ride for months, but she has settled down.  It wasn't until she down shifted and let me put pressure on her on the flat that I noticed how wound up she's been over the past weeks.  She didn't overreact to a minor correction, accepted the contact, and gave me a couple steps of real shoulder in.  She even let me sit, which was great because I didn't have any stirrups and I'm just too out of shape to post without stirrups for an entire ride.

I should work on that.  But later.  That's the joy of being an adult, I can always push off the no stirrup work.  My trainer let's me get away with that.

Somewhere between the lateral work and the canter to halt transition with no fuss, we both had a big sigh and relaxed for the first time in quite awhile.  No pressure, no worries about chaos ensuing or refusals, just a working session that she could understand and was comfortable with.

I also came to the realization that I'm done with the grieving.  I had a lovely wallow in my misery that included lemon drop martinis, but I'm done with that now.  It is what it is and I'm still very lucky.  There are plenty of riders that would give anything for a sound, talented horse that they could ride whenever they wanted.  I'm not going to worry about what happens next until April.

I've had a couple offers for horses to jump so I don't get out of shape, including an offer to borrow the Jumping Machine.  We get along fabulously, so it's far from a hardship.  I think this winter is going to be a good one.