I do not recall my exact age, I was no older than 10, but I do remember the important details of the event. My father, mother, sister, my neighbor and I went to New York City. I do not know why we went that day, but we would go often to the city weekends together, during my childhood. Although only my dad was from New York, we did not consider ourselves tourists because of our frequent visits. We did often engage in touristy activities, such as going to Time Square and eating in the Carnegie Deli. A popular activity for tourists is to take a picture with a member of the NYPD while they were on top of a horse. My family and I have taken pictures with them multiple times and the horses were generally tame.

Except for that one time a horse was not tame...

My family, neighbor and I waited in line, behind the other families who wanted to take a picture with an NYPD Mounted-unit horse. After ten minutes of waiting, it was our turn, and my sister and I went up to take a picture with the horse. My dad was snapping photos of us on his camera when all of a sudden the horse shook his head to the left smacking my face. I ran into the arms of my mother, crying with my new fear of the hay eating beast. The horse did not hurt me, but I his big head was half the size of my body and he scared me. The policeman felt bad that the horse made me upset and offered to let me sit on the horse and take a picture, which is an opportunity that nobody ever gets. I was very hesitant and my parents tried to persuade me to go sit on the horse, by telling me how it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to sit on an NYPD horse. Well, I was a stupid scaredy-cat and did not care that I would never get an opportunity like this again, and nonetheless, refused to sit on the horse.

It took years after the NYPD horse trauma, for me to get over my fear of horses. For the past few years, I have been regretting not sitting on the horse, as I know that I will most likely never get the opportunity to do so again. Although I can not find the photo from that day, we still take photos with NYPD horses. My cover photo was taken this past summer. A part of me hopes that an NYPD horse will smack me in the head again, so the policeman will hopefully allow me to sit on the horse so I can take my well-deserved picture.

My point is, to never be afraid to take risks because you might have regrets for not doing whatever it is. I am not saying to do something life threatening, but if you have a gut feeling that you should do something, go for it!

NYPD, if you are out there reading this, PLEASE let me sit on a horse, so I can take my picture and no longer have regrets. I weigh less than 100 pounds, so I can totally sit on the back of a horse with a policeman, without hurting myself, the policeman or the horse.