Falling-off Lessons

     The first time I fell off a horse I did not get back on.  I just lay there looking up her nose and she just stood there looking down at me like I was a dumb-ass.  We weren't running or even blazing a rugged trail, she just dipped in a little low spot and I tumbled right over her head and landed flat on my back.  I had been running my mouth and not paying attention.  Subsequent chiropractic examination revealed I had displaced my shoulder blades and several ribs.  Nothing life-threatening but a most uncomfortable lesson in paying attention.

     I wonder if these two strapping young fellas ever fell off their horse. They are my cousins Wiley and Elmo Willis and that is their dad, Albert Reece Willis, who married the daughter of my great-aunt Ellaphair Anderson.  Albert was from Tifton, but his family was living in the area of Glenmora, Louisiana, where he worked in a turpentine camp when this photo was taken in 1919.  Those boys look like they could probably take off on that horse and tear through those woods bareback and barefoot.  Even at their young age they were more than likely responsible for the care of that horse as well as others used for transportation.  And I couldn't even stay on one walking across a sod field.
   

     My daughter has taken several years of riding lessons with several great instructors.  That's her riding Dude (he's a  bona fide cowhorse) while instructor Chuck follows along.  Chuck (a bona fide cowboy) targeted her anxiety by making her fall off the horse and get back on during her very first lesson.  That made lots of sense.  If her biggest fear was falling off, then she should go ahead and get that out of the way so that she could move on.  I think that concept could be applied to many situations.  Lord knows my fear of failure has kept me from trying lots of things.
     Why is it that some people can dive headlong into a project or a relationship or even a new career without a single moment of anxiety, while some of us are paralyzed by the thought alone?  If I had that type of personality I would be making a heap more money and high school would have been way more fun.  But I have been meandering through my life, sticking my toe in the water here and there to make sure it was okay before I committed to taking many swims.  Since my strokes in 2009, I have thought a lot about my life and resolved some things within myself to clear out some mental baggage.  My anxiety about making changes and trying new things is one of the issues I continue to work on.  I have to alter the way I adapt to anything different than what I have gotten used to.  For example, I totally freaked out this Spring when I learned that my teaching position of fifteen years has been eliminated.  I have other certification so it wasn't like I was going to lose my job, but a mental fuse blew at the thought of having to change anything I did at work.  Turns out, this is a good change.  I have gotten bored with my underfunded art position and now face the challenge of organizing a pre-kindergarten classroom and acclimating twenty four-year-olds to a school climate.  It is an adventure that I find myself looking forward to. And the Pre-K department has lots more supply money!
     So from here on I will try to look at each pitfall like my tumble off that horse.  While it may have knocked the wind out of me and left me feeling kind of stupid, it didn't kill me.  I can get back on and keep moseying along.  Sure, there will be other dips in the road and some of them might be dangerous, but I have fallen before and gotten back up.  And even though a horse's muzzle is charming in its own way, the view is much better from the top.