Dear Reader,
I am living the life that I desperately prayed for when I was in college and working in the office. Even just a year ago, it seemed unattainable, or at least a far-off dream that I wouldn’t get to live out until my forties. I think that one of the reasons that my generation feels discouraged is that we were given a lie by society that our lives would automatically look a certain way by a certain age. I think that this white picket fence lie started with the boomer generation. Not that they were creating this lie, but that was the standard that they were given to attain. As this image trickled down, each generation became disgruntled by a cookie cutter dream, that was the American counterpart to Communist propaganda. While I do believe in Capitalism and that Communism is the dirtiest lie that came out of the 20th century, it can’t be denied that the red scare was used to shape the way our country thinks about things that aren’t even really communist. Both countries at the time were looking for loyal workers to feed the machine… excuse me, sometimes angry 17-year-old me comes to the surface when she realized how much of her $160 check went to social security and she could have used it to pay for her college books.
But I would rather live in a broken America than a functioning socialist Utopia. In an America that misses the mark on creating a more perfect union, I can at least still start my own business. Last week I officially bought my first horse for my business. He wasn’t even one I had looked at before the sale; I was just listening to the sale thinking about how hot it was when I heard Chic O Lena (which is like royalty for quarter horses). I immediately picked my head up and told my dad to buy him. I actually didn’t realize it was a gelding until after we got the bid, but it’s ok. I named him Maclin. (If you know don’t know where that name is from, you ain’t no cowboy.) Maclin is a very big, dun boy, who is only 16 months and knows that he is a handsome boy. He reminds me of a rich prep school boy who doesn’t know that he is rich. Sometimes I worry a bit that the other geldings take advantage of him. He is also still learning the concept of personal space, but he is catching on. At least I know he doesn’t really panic; he managed to wrap the hot wire around him last night and didn’t really freak out, he was just confused.
As the days meander by in a way that you don’t realize how fast they are going, I start to realize that there are things that I don’t have to do anymore that leave me a little at odds. I don’t have to spend hours answering my emails. Most of them are junk emails anyways. I don’t have to commute to work, though sometimes I miss my morning contemplation in the truck as I listen to my Celtic Thunder CD on repeat. I do kind of get that though when I am cleaning out stalls. Some people may not see that as an upgrade in my life, but it gives me time to contemplate on random things without worrying about traffic.
It’s funny the odd thoughts that come up when you have time to actually sit with your thoughts. Like the other day I realized that I am not fascinated with the idea of European immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries like I used to be. I read so many books about that in middle school and so many American Girl and Dear America books are based off of that premise, but I literally woke up this morning and realized I wasn’t interested in that anymore. It may have been the fact that I recently read “The Jungle” that made me never want to visit Chicago or eat canned meat again. Or it could have just been that that hyper fixation ran its course like most things that start in middle school do.
I have also realized recently that I will probably never be a full time anything. I don’t have the attention span to be a full-time writer. The thought of riding colts in the round pen every single day bores me. And while I love the ranching lifestyle, I don’t really want to live miles and miles into the wilderness and in an off grid cow camp. Sometimes I wish I could live forever like the elves in Lord of the Rings or at least for hundreds of years like the people in the Bible before the flood. That way I could live all the lives I want to lead and master all of the knowledge that I want to know. Sometimes I regret not being a neurologist, but then I remember that I prefer raising horses and cattle. Sometimes I wish I would have gone a more academic route and ended up as a librarian in some medieval library, but then I also remember that I like to feel the little cuts on my hands burn from horse sweat as I pet a colt after a good ride. Sometimes I want to put down roots so that my descendants will ranch on the same ground that I have for generations to come, but I also fantasize about living abroad in a nomadic lifestyle with my children. All of these versions of myself get together for a book club around 3:00 AM usually on a weeknight and keep me awake with ideas.
But I guess that’s why I keep coming back to ranching. Even though it is time consuming, sometimes it provides the flexibility and variety that a mind like mine needs, but it also breeds a spirit that just says swing up on the horse and sink spur.
