My daughter, Cameron, has loved horses as long as I can remember, and has been around a horse quite a bit. We still have the old mare I have had since I was 15 years old. Ms. Swen Boyd is too old to ride, according to her veterinarian, so she is retired to the peaceful pasture life.
When Cameron was six I took a job feeding Kathy Daly’s fancy dressage horses when she had a busy schedule or needed to travel for work. In exchange, she gave Cameron basic riding lessons. Cameron got to train with an award winning trainer, think Misty of Chincoteague, for a few months, and loved it dearly. But Kathy took a job training some other horses and moved out of state.
Eventually we found a new trainer, and again Cameron took riding lessons once a week for about a year. The lessons were expensive though, and her father refused to help with that expense. As a single mother I couldn’t keep doing it, so her lessons came to an end.
Her love of horses has only grown over the years. Realizing that it is still important to her, her dad put her back in lessons right after Christmas of 2018. She has been riding at Equistarre Horsemanship once a week for almost 10 months now. Her lesson horse is Gracie, a rescue horse who has several ailments, but she is sound for lessons and HUGE. And Cameron’s heart, she loves that horse, and their time together. Cameron still has much to learn, but she is taking it seriously, is making progress and has serious goals. She is riding Western and learning the basics, but she hopes she will be allowed to graduate to English soon and start learning about how she really wants to ride. She has done research, because she is her mama’s kid and we’re good at that, and concluded that at this rate of study, it will take her approximately two years to learn the basics.
Cameron struggles with expressing her needs and feelings. She recently told me that she feels depressed at least a little bit every day, and has for about 5 years. We have had weekly appointments with a family counselor for the last few months. I really like her counselor, who also works with me some and has really opened my eyes to the roll I have played in Cameron’s learning to keep things bottled up. By trying to keep the peace with their father and make sure everything remained calm and drama free for the kids, I inadvertently taught them to keep their mouth shut and not express their needs. Talk about feeling guilty!
Anyway, Cameron still has feelings of depression, but she is learning to express herself and communicate her needs better, finding positive ways to deal with her emotions. One of which is horses. She recently confided to me that she doesn’t just like horses, they are her happy place, the only place in the world where she feels free and good, always. That’s heavy for a worried mother to hear.
She is smart, taking four honors classes this year and is several years ahead of schedule academically. She also has all A’s and had the trip of a lifetime this past summer when NASA invited her to come explore their facilities, all expenses paid. She is kind, and good. She is amazing, and sometimes I can’t believe she is my daughter. I have always been smart, but this kid has surpassed me intellectually already, at 14! She has chosen Stanford as her preferred college. Yes, that is in California. Stanford is a great school, with a 5% acceptance rate. Tough, but not impossible for someone like her. But her primary reason for choosing that school is their equestrian team and the famous big red barn. Her dad says she can’t, that she should stay close and attend FSU, but by george if that is what she sees for her future, we will make it happen!
She wants to be a forensic scientist. And an author. Oh, and also an Olympic Equestrian. She told me that if she tells people that part of her future goals they will laugh and dismiss her idea as being frivolous and ridiculous, but she is very serious about it.
With her sister Skylar getting so involved with dance this year, and me committing so much of my time and energy to those pursuits, I felt I should somehow do the same for Cameron. Money is a problem, as is time. After much thought and debate, I decided the best thing for now is to just get her as immersed in that world as I can. As such, we have joined the local horseman’s association, and attended our first horse show last month. Both girls really loved it, but especially Cameron who wants to ride in the show next month! These shows are monthly, and if it falls on my weekend with them I vow to get her there. I have also signed her up for this year’s new and improved 4-H horse program, which also has monthly meetings run by several of the local equestrian leaders.
I have also been following her own trainer’s schedule of events, and plan to take Cameron to audit any workshops she has going forward. I’m hoping to get her more involved at the barn where she rides, so that she might have the opportunity to do some after school work there and further immerse herself in the world of the horse that she loves so much. Yesterday I saw a post about Christopher Reeves on facebook. Seeing reminders of his story always causes me to have a momentary feeling of panic. I don’t want my beloved first born child to end up paralyzed because what she’s chosen to dedicate her life to is deadly! But on the other hand, what is life if not to be lived? It can be scary, and very much is scary for me, but I have to support her and help her make her dreams a reality, just like I’m trying to do for her little sister.
Those two girls are my heart, and I would do anything for them..including drive around from place to place for three hours every day and work seven days a week to pay for the privilege of doing so. After all, someone has to get her to the Olympics!
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