Questions (and exploration)

I’m living my dream, but I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.

It sounds ridiculous, I know. I’m 22; technically I’m grown up. There’s people my age that are finishing degrees and starting careers in fields as prestigious as law and accounting. People my age that have been living out of home for four to six years. People doing internships, getting promoted, starting business, heck I know there’s 22 year old millionaires out there.

Sometimes I wonder whether I actually have the drive that these people have. If pursuing my dream like I have means that I’m more passionate than them, or whether I’m just avoiding ‘real world’ responsibilities. I came here knowing that my budget would be tight (no room for savings; no thoughts of owning a house yet), that I’d have no way to get another job to combat that, that it could be seen (even by me) as putting my life on hold for a year to chase a fancy that will never lead to anything.

What scares me about thinking that is that when I think about where or what I want to be in ten years, I come up entirely blank. Words flit through my head – professional, rider, eventing, acupuncture, psychology – but when I try to pin down exactly where I’m trying to go, I have no idea. Perhaps that’s normal for someone my age – the 20s is a time when you explore and pursue all the possibilities you can. Yet that doesn’t mean that it has to be wasted; and when I hear about so-and-so graduating, or starting a job in a law firm, or getting married or pregnant or buying a house, I feel like that’s what I’m doing. Marking time. Wasting time.

It’s a horrible feeling. Especially when I know deep in my gut that what I’m doing now is my dream job. And the thing that makes me wonder where I’m going to be in ten years isn’t a lack of passion or love for what I’m doing now, but a fear that I’m not going to be able to succeed.

Horses, equestrian, this career path is somewhat unique. You can train your entire life to be a professional rider and then have an accident which means that you have to take years off, or that you’ll never ride again. People keep talking about backups in this sport. When you become a lawyer you don’t need a backup. Nurse, doctor, psychologist, hell even jobs like journalists or receptionists don’t need backups. But the moment you start to talk about making a career in horses, that’s the same moment people ask what you’re going to do for real, or what you’re going to do just in case.

There are people in this sport that have had serious accidents and managed to keep their life; to teach even when they couldn’t speak, to get back to riding after being told they never would. But even then, if you have no ability to teach lessons, if riding is your only forte; what then?

Even within the equestrian field I’m at a total loss. Obviously riding is very important to me and I’d love to be able to train and ride. I’d love to teach lessons too. It sort of sounds like I’d like to be a head trainer at a facility, or my own facility; needs a lot more thought as far as business and all that is concerned though. Could I be a full-time groom for the rest of my life? What about a barn manager? I don’t necessarily want to be a ‘professional working student’; but how many years then should I allow myself to take those jobs? When do I say ‘no that’s it I’m not a working student any more, I’m going to apply for trainer jobs’? Will I ever get to that point?

And that’s all assuming that it’s going to be horses. When I think that perhaps it might not be a whole other ream of possibilities spills at my feet; should I take the extra four years, get my psych qualification, and then try horses again? Should I switch to social work and only take a couple of years and then look at horses? Or social work and then a couple of years of that work and then reassess horses? What about acupuncture? That’s a good horsey backup, can I take the time to get those qualifications? But if I have an accident riding that stops me from teaching that’ll probably stop me from doing acupuncture as well. I enjoyed retail, but do I want to do that if there comes a point I can’t get a horsey job? What about the money? Do I go for psychology and money and flexibility and extra time and effort or stick where I am knowing that affording a house, a life, is going to be far in the future?

The questions are overwhelming. The answers are absent.

But.

I’m asking the questions. They’re there, in the back of my mind. Every now and again I look up housing in areas near well-known English eventing yards – I wonder if I could work there and afford to live off property. I look up acupuncture courses and the restrictions of my visa – I don’t think I can do official education right now. What courses do they have in England? I think about what it would cost as far as my riding career is involved to pursue psychology. I think about whether I could cope with going back to that now that I’ve been so involved with something I truly truly love.

And more than that; I’m doing something I truly, truly love. Some days are a struggle. It’s hard to do physical work every day, and some mornings it’s difficult to think about doing the same chores over again that I’ve been doing for nearly five months (!!!) now. But then I kiss Cody on the nose and give Gyles a hug and take Calib for a hack, and I know that as far as jobs are concerned, I’m home.

Ten years from now, I have no idea what I’ll be doing.

Ten months from now, I have very little idea what I’ll be doing.

But right now I’m living my dream. And I’m realising that yes, this is my dream job. No matter the drawbacks, no matter the backups, no matter the lack of titles; working with horses is everything I thought it would be, and more.

I’m not wasting time. I’m discovering how to make the most of it, one day at a time.