I hated every sport. My parents tried everything with me, and we went through virtually every sport that you can imagine. Not only did I hate most of them—I'm more of an artsy kid—but I was terrible at most of them. Despite that, when I was about seven, I was on my school's swim team. I was up, and so was my dad, at six in the morning to drive me to practice twice a week. And before keratin, my mom was at every swim meet, frizzy hair and all, and my loudest cheerleader.
I quit swimming around the age of fourteen. While it seemed like I was giving up on sports, I wasn't. Since the age of eight, I rode horses every weekend. My summers were about spending my whole day at the barn. I didn't care if I only rode for an hour, I loved cleaning up after the horses and playing with my friends. I loved it, and my parents loved that I was into a sport. Beginning at the age of eleven I started to work pony camp so that I would be able to help pay for my lessons. From the age of fourteen, my parents would lease me a horse every summer so that I could compete. The sport prepared me for a lot of life—for parts outside of the saddle that I never thought it would. I had built a community at my barn, it was a second family to me, and I never thought I would have to give that up.
Once college began, I couldn't ride every weekend. In fact, I left the barn that was home to me for seven years. Horseback riding taught me a lot, but the part that it didn't teach me was how to let go. Riding was my everything for most of my life. It was there for me through bullies, bad grades, heartbreak, birthdays, and milestones. Sure, I learned to let go of the horses I leased, but I never thought I would have to let go of the sport as a whole., and that's what it felt like. Like I had to give up my sport. Once the barn and people that were familiar to me were gone, it felt like the whole sport was gone.
So, here's the part that no one tells you: just because you're growing up, just because you are an adult, does not mean that your sport has to end. I had to grow up, realized that I wasn't comfortable with my parents spending all that money on me. Yes, it was hard giving up riding every weekend, the barn I grew up in, and the friends I made along the way. But, in a way, high school was ending, and it seems poetic that part of my life is ending too. Now that my first year of college is over, I am overjoyed about my new barn, the part where I can actually see my friends and boyfriend over the summer, and work part-time and keep the money. While I did have to grow up and let go of my sport the way I knew it, I also gained a whole new world of adulting.
