Truthful Tuesday

Today on Truthful Tuesday, we're going to talk about my conflicting emotions in relation to riding/training/showing my horses. Getting older is hard. Getting older and trying to be a successful amateur rider is even harder!
I think, for me anyway, it's really tough to quit riding for 3-4 months out of the year due to not having an indoor. I'm not super confident. Even back in the day when I jumped big jumps, I never stood at that ingate thinking, "yeah, no problem, I'm gonna win this one". So to just stop riding completely for awhile and then start again with questionable weather (and mildly insane equine) is REALLY HARD! Now add on all the social media I'm seeing of everyone showing and I'm feeling so jealous! But also a little terrified. Part of me wants to get out there and get back in the show ring. But the other part of me is afraid to jump any of this:

Well... maybe I'm ok with that little hurdle. If it's cloudy so there's no shadow. And it's not windy. And it's at least 70 degrees. Because that's when I think Jamp won't spook.
Seeing everyone out there killing it in the show ring makes me a little nostalgic and I start looking at old photos...

When I was a junior I had the best Junior Hunter. His name was Just Humour Me, and we called him Bud. Or Bud-Bud. Or Spud. Or Budly... He had a lot of nick names. He was an appendix quarter horse. I bought him when he was five and we embarrassed ourselves through the levels until we actually figured out what we were doing. He was my first heart horse, and he was the best confidence builder out there. THE. BEST. He NEVER said no at a jump. Even when it really would have been in our best interest. Sometimes he would get WILD, but he always let you know before it was a problem, and you could quickly lunge it out of him. I showed in the 3'6" juniors, but back then, there was no 3'3" option. LOOK HOW HIGH WE JUMPED! And I'm still alive!
Fast forward to college... I lost Bud during the second month I was at Skidmore. It was devastating, but that's a story for a different day. My trainer at school made sure I had the best horses to ride any time I wanted to after that. Which was pretty incredible. And eventually Cosmo joined the family. Cosmo was hard. Really hard to ride. REALLY HARD! Caps lock HARD. But honest as the day is long. He might rear and spin at the in gate. He might throw his legs at the top rails and have 28 faults. But he always jumped the jumps. And with him I learned to jump the big fences (for me, not really big fences). We did the Low Amateur Owner Jumpers.

Low? Really? I see nothing low here.

His antics and mistreatment of his own body led to him not staying sound enough for the jumpers. He really wasn't an eq horse nor a hunter (not at all there!) and I did not yet have my farm, so I decided it was time to donate him to a boarding school and find a new mount. He lived out his life there, and they absolutely loved him. He even participated in IEA and IHSA shows!
Cosmo liked to play with my confidence. Being not that brave, it was a challenge to get to the horse show and get through the ingate some days. Literally. He had such stage fright! But I think he taught me how to fake feeling tough. As long as I told him I wasn't scared, he'd believe me. Even if it was a bold faced lie. And he'd bounce into that ring (yes, walking in was asking too much, it's called compromise!) and cart my timid butt around a 4'3" course. That's a good boy.
My boy Rio who you all know and love was the next to walk into my life. Want to know a secret? I didn't really like him when he first arrived. I know, right?! But Rio was like Bud. He didn't care how many times I lied to him. How scary the mountain oxer was I was galloping him at, he always jumped the jump. He almost never got wild. He might be spooky before getting down to business, but never once you were working. And look what I managed to do with him:

I know! Hard to believe. We showed pretty consistently in the 1.3 and 1.35 M classes. Blows my mind to look back at that. And I wonder if that confidence will ever come back. I think it's really important to have the right horse. One that you trust quite literally with your life.
I love my Jamposaur and we even dabbled in the jumper ring but that trust isn't there:

We didn't venture higher than the 1.2 M before I decided it wasn't the ring for us. I can't fool Jamp into believing I'm not scared. And he has made zero attempts at tricking me into thinking he's brave. And so we need help from our trainer to get us in the ring. Or over these even some days:

Now that Spring is here (sort of... 50 degrees and windy in May is spring, right?), I haven't been able to force myself to jump Jampy any higher than 2'. I think I'll feel better if someone is there to babysit. But the one day I had a friend around, Jamp was a nut case. Spooking and running off, rearing and spinning. NOT a day for jumping. Ugh. My vet thinks it's Lyme disease rearing it's ugly little face, so hopefully there's a reason and cure to all this fear we've both accumulated. My trainer doesn't have anyone to watch her daughter at the moment so that also means I haven't been able to have her out to help me.
I'm terrified that all this fear inside will lead me to mess up Romey and Badger (aka GTO). I want to get them both moving forward with confidence spilling out their ears. I want to get all of the horses in the show ring with only positive thoughts. That, my friends, will take time. Because all of the successes from my past didn't happen the first time I swung a leg over those horses. They all took time. With Bud, it took years! With Cosmo... the successes were small. And they could be fleeting. But with Rio... The successes took some time, but then they just kept coming. Once I found his happy place in the eq ring, they've come with Jamp too. His can be fleeting. He's more of a Cosmo than a Bud or Rio.
Looking back on the past, I know the fear came. With each horse it was there at some point. And with each horse, I was able to overcome it. And I know I can again. 

Do you ever have fears when you're working toward a goal? Or cantering toward a crossrail? What do you do to overcome them?