Where am I? Where am I going?

Here I am...2009, nineteen years old, riding for nine years, owning Cal for five years, playing in Parelli for four years.

Where to begin, I wonder?  Quick summary, when I first got Cal in April 2004, we were pretty wild.  Not fun wild, but out of control wild.  I found myself with a right-brain extrovert who thought everything meant run!!!  I must give credit where it is due, and by the end of my first year with Cal, through the help of traditional lessons and my perseverence of riding six days a week, Cal and I not only survived, but had become somewhat of an example at my barn of what sort of transformation was possible with hard work and dedication.  We had gone from completely out of control to comfortably able to w/t/c, jump 2'6", stop (as well as any horse in the barn, at least)...all in all I was pretty pleased.  Lol.

Then in May 2005, the barn owner had some people come and give a Parelli clinic.  Though they were not officially Parelli instructors, I had visited the Parelli website before-hand and was completely blown away by the success stories on the site.  I saw things I had never even thought possible...People riding their horses bareback and bridleless, playing with horses at liberty in wide open fields, willing, happy horses.  I ordered the Level 1 pack and thus began the journey.  I passed Level 1 in December 2005.

I'm afraid, from there, the progress slowed.  I missed out on Level 1 purgatory, and seemed to decide to spend my entire time stuck in Level 2.  Years passed...

Until now.  My family moved in fall 2007 so that we could have the horses at the house.  And I slipped into lethargy and lost that fire and desire to be the best I could be.  This summer (2009) has been a recovery for me.  All that I once wanted is coming back in full force, and with it, reminders of why my enthusiasm wore thin over the years.

Things pushing me forward:  The possiblity that someday, maybe someday, I will reach the heart of my horse.  Trusting enough to go riding bareback and bridleless somewhere larger than that 70' x 140' arena.  Finally being able to say that my horse wanted to play as much as I did.  To fly over jumps, dance through patterns at liberty, flying lead changes, ask my horse to lie down...It all comes down to the same thing....trust.

Filled with all those desperate desires I discover my oppostion:  My impatience.  I've played for years!  Why haven't things improved?!  (Ah, the inability of humans to see that things HAVE improved.)  My uncertainty that any of those things are possible.  Maybe I'm just not meant to be good with horses.  It took me years to even accept that I liked my amazing but complicated horse.  It's always a wildcard with him.  He's all over the map, one day LBI, the next RBI, or RBE or LBE.  Sometimes it's not even the change of a day, but changes while I'm playing.

So what does all this mean?  I'm not who I want to be.  I want...need....more patience, more understanding.  And above all, I need to believe again that my dreams really are possible.