The Waiting Game

It feels like that is all I have been playing for the last year. No, not for a form of transportation as Dr Seuss suggests. Not literally. But I have been waiting to find that destination, the one thing that might make me sit still. Perhaps I have been exercising geographical cures, although not purposefully. I think now it is time to settle down. The people who love me are tired of me wandering about wondering where I belong. I can't say I blame them, especially since I have a 3 year old. I just wish they might exercise more patience with me.

I learn by doing. It is the way I have always been. I hope it is not how I will always be, but I am 24. Don't I get a break at this age? Do people normally react well to the way you treat me, as though I was a hamster needing to turn the other direction on this wheel?

At the moment, I think I may want to go into nursing, although I suppose that might be up for debate. I just don't think I was made for this silly business stuff. I have tried and failed. Isn't that what I always say, though? When does this crap end? Is it because I am young? Or because I just simply cannot make up my mind?

So, I have launched onto a course of vigorous action. I got a job, which I start on September 9. It is a part time restaurant job, but the hours may allow me to search my options with nursing. I met with a nurse midwife who suggested I shadow a midwife or two.. However, now neonatal nursing or ob nursing sounds fun, as does becoming a lactation consultant.

Lord, please send me the answer....

Change of direction, again...

"Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. " ~ Dr Seuss, Oh! The Places You'll Go.

That's right, I am changing direction again. I have been saying that every couple of months the past couple of years. 

When I graduated college, I panicked. It's like I have been sitting in one spot for the past couple of years, afraid to take a step in any direction, for fear that everything will fall out from under me. It is, despite my best efforts to stop it. 

Riding horses is not the direction my life is going to take, but at one time, I thought it might be, so I had to try it out. It was a definite fail, and all that is left for me to do now is pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on. I don't entirely know where I am going, but I do know that now I need to focus on supporting Kiley. It is time to act like a mom, not a little dreamer. 

It's an ego blow. I have spent the past couple of months feeling like I was hit in the face by a mack truck. I'll be okay, though. I am a survivor and a damn good mom. I just wish I hadn't made half the choices I have made since she's been alive... I wish I had stayed with my mom after she was born, gone to OSU....I would have saved so much money. I wish I would have just stayed at DSW up to this point. I would have been making more money, had more people who would give me a positive reference...

But those weren't my choices at the time because I was young and I "knew better." I'm trying not to beat myself up, though. I was young and I became a mom before I meant to. I am tired of struggling, though. So tired. I am ready to start working my way up in a company of some sort, any sort. I am ready to build a life for Kiley, to pay back my student loans...

I want to be a midwife and a researcher now. How's that for a 180? When I told people that was what I wanted, the general response was, well...yeah! Why did that not occur to me earlier?

So goes life, I suppose.... It's been a journey, the whole learning to appreciate the ride thing. I wouldn't trade it. This just might be where I am supposed to be so I don't have to be here again.

Oh, the places you'll go!

Since December, I have made a decision. That decision is not to continue at the University of Findlay. There are a multitude of reasons, but the biggest reason is that I have found my purpose. That was, after all, what that adventure was about, wasn't it?

How did I come to that conclusion? Well, first and foremost, back in December, I was offered a job. It's my dream job. It does not pay much, but it's what I want to be doing, at least for now. I will be managing a barn in Johnstown, OH and also, apprenticing under the trainer there. Also, it's in a discipline that I just did not think I would be involved in. Dressage. I used to have dreams of riding cow horses and reiners, running across the arena to a sliding stop, spinning, running around barrels and poles... 

But that's just not what I want to do, mainly because of the direction the western industry has taken over the past decade. I won't go too deeply into that, but the kind of horse they expect in that industry is a very specific type, and if the horse is not that type, they will put all these gadgets on it to MAKE it that type, resulting in a lot of joint and muscular issues. 

In dressage, they aren't necessarily looking for a specific type of horse, mainly just a horse who moves forward and into the bit and can do the prescribed exercises for their level. In the upper levels, certain types of horses are a little more suitable, but that's just the nature. 

So, end of April/beginning of May, I will be moving to Johnstown to the apartment above the barn, and will be managing the facility. I will also be apprenticing under Renee, who is a remarkable trainer, rider, and all around horse woman. Kiley and Tim will be moving there with me, then Tim and I are planning to start our own little family!

Another reason I am choosing not to continue at Findlay is that the business office has been next to impossible to deal with. Also, the program is going to hell next year.

I will also be working a waitressing (or something similar) job several hours a week to help me pay back loans. I will also be volunteering at CHOICE for several hours a week to start to work towards becoming a doula. That process will probably start sometime next year.

So, here lately, I have been working with this mare, Minnie at Findlay. For weeks, I felt like a total failure. Then, instruction changed, and we have actually worked well together for the past few weeks. This whole suppling a dressage horse thing is a foreign concept to me. In western it's mechanically different and SO much simpler. We are getting there, though. Thursday, she was absolutely amazing. Hopefully, real progress will start to be made, now.