My Thighs Hurt, And Other Random Things.

1. My thighs really do hurt. Sorry if that TMI, but it's from my riding lessons. I'm an really, really happy to be back in the saddle, but I forgot how much I despise two-point. Two-point is the reason that my thighs hurt and my instructor thinks that I'm slightly crazy.
2. Since I'm on the topic of horses, outside of my lessons I have been riding 16.2. hands of gorgeous bay thoroughbred named Map Maker. Like me, Mappy is a little messed up, though. He has Head-Shaking Syndrome. He's really just a sweet horse with a pretty skittish personality and bad luck. Also, he has the most incredible and huge trot ever. Everybody says that when I ride him, Map is a different horse. They say he's more alert, but also more relaxed and braver and that he "loves his Margaret." I wouldn't know if he was any different because I don't know how he was to ride before. Obviously. But when I'm riding him, I can feel when he really wants to move out, especially at the trot, but is too scared to take the lead. The other day, I could feel when he finally overcame his fear and decided to move ahead. As he kept going he extended and extended his trot until he was flying and leaving the other two horses in the dust. In fact, I had to hold him back. As he went, he got more and more confident, I could feel it. He still spooked sideways at some very scary shadows, but he was just such a good boy. Honestly, I feel like I ride him well because I can understand him. I know that might sound a little weird, but I know what it's like to feel too scared to move out, even when you really want to. I know what it's like to feel trapped inside yourself. I get it, Mappy, I get you.
3. I am love with a little thing called Pandora Radio. If you've never tried it, you really should. See, I'm even providing you with the link. I highly recommend the Love Like Woe Radio, which I am currently listening to.
4. For Lent this year, I didn't give anything up, but I made a resolution instead. Every night, I write down three positive things. I haven't really told anyone, because whenever I do, I get mocked about it. But the other night, when I was having a really, really hard time with my stupid, messed-up mind, I read all the things I've written so far. It helped. When I first pulled out the diary, I read the entries in it from 2009, when I did the same thing, only with one thing per day. I cried. Almost every day had something about Mickey.
5. That is all. For now.

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.