Watching between Fingers
| May 19, 2023 | Posted by Melinda under Being Mom, Uncategorized |
“Do you want to come watch this?”
I most definitely did not want to come watch anything. I definitely did not want to watch the smallest 7 year old in the world canter around on the most patient old polo mare in existence.
Fig has been doing her best to convince me that it was time for her to canter. “That’s between you and Bonnie” I kept repeating to her. I was 17 went I cantered for the first time. She’s 7.
OK. That’s an exaggeration. I was probably 14 or 15. But you get my point.
“Are you going to be scared to watch me canter?” Fig asked with absolute delight. She knows the answer to this question.
“I think you should still be walk-trot on a leadline,” I replied. Bonnie, her coach, rolled her eyes at me.
Fig shrieked NOOOOOOOOOOO which is the exact echo of the voice I have in my *my head* when she tells me that today is the day she will convince Bonnie she is ready to kick it up a notch. She’s been at it for six months.
“Mommy. I looked deep into Bonnie’s eyes and I know, that in her heart, she believes I’m ready to canter.”
BWHAHAHAAHAHA. Yeah…..that isn’t going to work. You may be a hopeless romantic already but I am not. You keep working it but you are talking to the wrong person. (and also. What movies are you watching on Netflix gurl?)
I can’t even watch her play polo at a walk/trot. This is why someone else is in charge of teaching her and coaching her. We are only doing this horse thing because she insisted on it and keeps insisting on it and now here we are, all playing polo and at danger of getting our squishy bits splatted.
I finished tacking up Sasha, the big ‘ole polo pony that another teenager at the barn has shared with Fig, and handed the horse and kid off to Bonnie. Then I promptly disappeared to do anything except watch her. Which in this instance was tacking up horses for my polo lesson with the Aggie girls. Ie hiding in the tack room.
“Hey, she just cantered,” one of the aggie girls told me as I stared at the ground fussing with the billets, deliberately not looking in the arena
Great. This was wonderful in theory. Also. I don’t want to know. Apparently today was the day that little persistent munchkin had convinced the gullible adults in her life she could absolutely canter a horse despite still not being able to tie her own shoes.
“Is she still on top.”
“Yes, you should come and watch.”
No.
“Yes, you should. Come over here.”
Bonnie yelled at me to come watch, and when told her I could not possibly do that without puking, she told me to get over to the gate to watch, and also don’t puke on her gate. And also, look, she’s cantering!
I watched her canter that big ole mare, carefully nestled between two of her friends on their polo ponies, with tears streaming down my cheeks.
Only twice in seven and a half years I’ve cried big fat irrational tears that I didn’t understand.
My tears are not because I regret the time is passing. I’m not that sentimental.
I’ve never understood the people who exclaim that their kids are growing up too fast, or cry when the obvious next step happens. Isn’t that the point? You have a kid and raise them to be their best version of an adult as time marches on. That’s the job. To pretend anything else seems illogical.
No, I think my tears are tears of relief. We are going to be OK. I’m doing a good enough job of surrounding her with people and opportunities that she has the space to do the things she’s capable of doing, even if I’m hiding in the tack room while she does them. Despite my inadequacies, anxieties, and divergent brain that struggles to relate to this fairy changling that is different from me in almost every way, somehow it’s all working out anyways.
