As if camping wasn't disastrous enough, I agreed to go horseback riding a few months back. Correction, I didn't actually agree to it, it was a "surprise" that I ended up figuring out. I wasn't the least bit excited considering I had a traumatic experience when I was around 8 on a pony (yes, a pony. Shut up), but the person taking me (who we will call... Adam) was really excited about it and I figured I owed it to him after all the planning and effort that was put into it.
Right when we got there my anxiety hit an all-time high. Horses are massive! The one I would be riding already wasn't very cooperative from the start. I kept telling Adam that my horse looked like it didn't listen very well, but he assured me the horse was "just a big baby" and "it's the horse they put little kids on to ride." I was wondering if the horse could sense my fear because my fists were clenched so tight I had imprints from my fingernails and my uncontrollable shaking didn't help. No one really said anything, so I thought maybe the horse wouldn't notice it. Well, that was wrong. The horse didn't listen to me at all, he did everything Adam's horse did- apparently they're horse BFF's.
After trotting around in small circles for a few minutes and feeling more relaxed, Adam asks if I want to ride down to see if a trail nearby is still able to ride. I politely said no, but he insisted and of course, my horse took it upon himself to follow him onto the MAIN ROAD, which led to a raggedy ass bridge that looked about 20lbs away from collapsing. Not to mention, you had to stay close to one side to avoid all the nails sticking up which is really hard to do when you have a horse that walks crooked when you try to steer it.
After deciding the trail was too overgrown to ride (thanks to me, Adam still wanted to go on it- hell no) we head back, and that's when it happened.
It all happened so fast that I'm not really exactly sure what happened. All I know is that my horse started moving so fast and wouldn't stop and I screamed and it was embarrassing and I
was fighting harder than ever not to have an emotional break down and then I said,
"OK, I'm done. I'm over it. I don't want to do this anymore!" And Adam had to walk my horse back to the stable... humiliating. I was kind of pissed at him though because here I was, already WAY out of my comfort zone and he just kept pushing me and pushing me. If we had never gone toward that damn trail I wouldn't have seen my life flash before my eyes!
Looking back, it's possible I was a little bit dramatic. Needless to say, I will not be horseback riding again. I'll consider riding a carousel.
