Since the Advanced Equine Management course ended in May, I've been pondering what to do with this blog. I thought of using it with my Level I Equine Management class that I'm teaching now, but that didn't materialize. Once I heard that I had gotten a full-time teaching position in the fall, I realized that I could use this blog for personal musings on my own riding, horses and Obe, in particular.
Allow me to set the stage with a little bit of past....
Six years ago, Jim and I were married at the courthouse in Helena, Montana. The Justice of the Peace, Wallace Jewel, asked us how someone born in Colorado met someone born in Tennessee to get married in Montana. We could only shrug and smile our silly, soon-to-be-wed grins that were etched on our faces that day. A few months later, we trekked across the country, moving to Virginia Beach where we both were teaching at a private high school. That gig ended in summer, 2005, and I haven't had a "normal" full-time job since then. I worked for a time as an assistant horse trainer; I was a long-term substitute teacher at a different private high school. After moving to western North Carolina, I've worked for a year and a half as part-time writing program coordinator at a local community college. To make ends meet, I've taught lessons, Equine Management courses, trained horses, and (my bones ache just thinking about it) waited tables. It's been tough...physically, emotionally and financially.
It's that last part that makes the part-time work the worst. You work and work, yet there never seems to be enough money. Add to that the fact that I own a horse...a hobby not for the lean of pocketbook. It's put a substantial strain on us, something that has been a great consternation for my husband. Every few months, there would be a bit of a panic that too little money was coming in and too much money was going out. I felt every word right in those muscles that connect your neck to your shoulders - and when those muscles couldn't hold anymore stress, I would feel it sink heavily into my chest. I was working so hard to keep the horse I love so much...yet it wasn't enough (and I won't go into the whole "not good enough" thing here).
However, with one phone call last Monday (a week ago today), things changed. I'm now, in the present tense, teaching/working full-time at the community college where I've run the writing program. The powers that be were able to find room in the budget to give me a few English classes and bump me to full-time (especially after finding out that I'd applied to a different school for a full-time position this fall). My personal income will more than double starting in August. I know life is about much more than money, but this news alone has made my passion for horses POSSIBLE...not a struggle, but a definite part of my life. My husband didn't know me during those years when I tried to give up horses to convince God to love me more. He didn't know how scared and lost and empty I was. He didn't see the change in me during grad school when I rediscovered my heart in a roundpen at Danada Equestrian Center. He didn't share in the dozens of, yes, mystical experiences in Montana when I found that place where I lost track of time and truly felt at one with God. I think Jim may have inklings of that process...but now, there is no question about my future with horses.
And so, I can look forward to the next few months, instead of dreading the end-of-the-month spiral into fear and stress and heavy weights in my chest. Two days ago, Jim said it..."Don't worry too much about teaching too many lessons. You won't have to, board's not a problem. We don't have to worry about the horse anymore." I can show you where we were...sitting in the car, pulling out of the public parking lot in downtown Waynesville, turning right towards home.
