Short and Sweet :: Those Horses.

Today, I visited the barn where I am probably going to start taking riding lessons. While I was there, I watched a jumping clinic. 

While watching that clinic, I realized how long it’s been since I seriously did anything except walk on a horse. I realized that I have been a horse exactly once this entire winter. I looked at the jumps and knew that a year ago, they would have looked like nothing, but now they look huge. I watched the three people in that lesson walk, trot, canter, ride out bucks, pull up horses that were far too full of themselves, figure out spacing, canter through grids, push and kick and smack their horses to get more energy, and finally fly over oxers and I remembered exactly how it felt to do every one of those things. I realized how much I miss doing that. I realized how much I miss walking into the barn and greeting every horse by name, stroking all the muzzles that are hanging over stall doors, and having that one furry, four-legged best friend that loves you no matter what. I realized that all of those things will forever be a part of me. And I honestly wondered how I got through the past six months without all of that.

Lonely.

Right now, I'm sitting in play practice. I should be working on homework. I'm not. My laptop is about to die, half the buttons on it decided not to work today, I have a presentation in English tomorrow that our teacher has been extremely unclear about and STILL hasn't posted the document that we're supposed to take it from, and I barely got any sleep last night. It's probably not the best time to be writing. I probably shouldn't even be posting this here because it involves a lot of people who I know read my blog. Maybe I'll come to my senses and not end up posting this. Whatever. Most of them already know and I need to get my feelings out one way or another.

Lately, I've been feeling downright alone. It's not a pleasant feeling. You see, ever since this year started, I've been thinking: all of my best friends come in pairs. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but it's kind of true. For instance, there's Alex-and-Erin, Kaley-and-Maddi, Megan-and-Jessie. Then there's me. Me, who has half of her pair living 300 miles away. The world, or at least the school world that I live in, is made for pairs of friends, not a pair with a hanger-on. Teachers say "Get into pairs," not "Get into groups of three." That hanger-on with nowhere else to go? That's me. Now, more than ever, everyone just seems like they're fed up with me.

Don't get me wrong, I love my friends dearly and sometimes everything is fine, but even so, I just feel so...left out. More and more, I'm just the outcast who can't fit into the little line that we walk in down the hallway, the one that is left behind when they go to the vending machines or out to their lockers, the one that isn't shown the hilarious picture on tumblr. I feel so stupidly jealous and petty when I think that, but it's been happening more and more, like I said. It sucks. The worst part about it, though, is that I feel like there's nothing I can do. Those kinds of friendships are the ones that start in elementary school and just keep hanging on. It's not something that you can just go up to someone and say, "Be my best friend." You might have really close friendships that are almost that like that, but in the end, nothing can touch it. Maybe I should just get used to being lonely. I don't really know what else to do.

Over and out.