2024, you were a really rough assignment for a lot of people. You brought heartache and chaos to many parts of the world, both horsey and not. You caused pain. You caused angst.
And I feel like a heel, because you were one of the best calendar years of my life.
I’ve been joking-not-joking with people about how this was the year in which I officially Arrived: I was asked to give a lecture to the US Pony Club, I won a National Championship, and I’m now sponsored by Mrs. Pastures Horse Cookies. I have MADE IT, y’all.
And it wasn’t just those three things. I wrote a little book, and I’m finalizing a contract on a big one. I put together my second syndicate to buy another stellar horse, and between the two syndicate horses and my own, I’m sitting on the best horses of my career. I was given an amazing opportunity to own an incredible senior Grand Prix horse, on whom I was able to make it possible to let some people I love show FEI. I taught more clinics and lessons than I’ve ever taught in a calendar year. My staff is phenomenal. My clients are wonderful.
I’m terrified.
I know there’s nothing holy about January 1, no magic happens at 12:01, but it’s easy to look back and think of the year 20blahblah as good or bad, and I’ve had some bad. The year that everything died. The year(s) that I was broke. The year where what I thought was my path to success was suddenly uprooted. I’ve been in those years. We’ve all had those years. One human constant is failure, whether by our own choices or by the universe slapping us with some calamity.
And I know that there’s always dark within the light, and light within the dark. The worst year of my life, the year that I nearly went bankrupt, which was followed by the year in which everything died, was also the year that my now-husband waltzed in. This year, in which there was so, so very much good, had its ick times: a death of someone I cared for deeply, some staffing challenges, having to get real about horses in my life and what they wanted to be when they grew up. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, just as the down times can have their moments of joy.
But it just feels like there’s been too much good, and what goes up must inevitably come down. So I’m going to prepare for it. I’m trying hard to do right by my people, setting up a 401k for my employees, and focusing hard on finding them learning opportunities (as I always do). I’m checking off some deferred maintenance, so at least when chaos descends, it’ll hopefully be unpreventable chaos, because that’s less painful, somehow, in my weird little brain. And I’m writing things like this, to remember all the triumph, all the glory, all the bright shining success of this year’s good times, because I can look back and remember what it felt like, when things go inevitably to shit.
I expressed this thought to a friend recently, who said, “that’s not planning ahead. That’s a trauma response.” And maybe it is. But I think, then, that life is inherently traumatic. But for me, the worst days in this horse business, the days when all hell has, truly, broken loose, are still a price worth paying for all the good. So cheers to you, 2024, and onward.