I'm not surprised, really. I've been restless on and off for the last seven and a half years. It's been better lately, but the feeling is never really gone. I never really lose it. The restlessness is always there, no matter how settled or good I feel.
I know what brought it back this time. This isn't my first time watching Rolex—it isn't even close to being the most invested that I've been in the competition either—but that doesn't make it any less of an experience. I've seen it four times, really—once when I went in 2010, and on the USEF Network live stream for the last three years. It's the event for me, the thing that glues me to the television or my computer for four days in the way that some people watch the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. I enjoy watching the other things that are live-streamed over the course of the year—the 5* Grand Prixs are always fun to watch, and whatever other events, but Rolex is it.
In 2010, it was more about just being there. I didn't know the event that well—I just knew it was Rolex. I didn't know the riders well at all, because it was pre-my social media days, which have let me learn about and follow all of these riders and develop an immense respect for their skills and their horsemanship. All that mattered was that I was there. All that mattered was that I was standing on that cross-country course, watching the rounds, watching these people and these horses sail over fences that were wider than I was tall like they were nothing.
Rolex 2015, I was glued to my computer even as I was studying for finals because Mandy was there, because she'd made it with that horse that I watched her train and I hadn't seen her in a while but I knew what that meant. I knew what finishing meant. I knew how far Cody had come because I was there for a lot of the early days and to see that horse—the one whose mane I pulled one day, the one I watched her school in the arena on those days when I would stay at the barn for hours—make it to the highest level of competition in the United States? That was everything. I cried watching her dressage test because they were there and part of me was too.
The last couple years I've watched just because, because eventing is everything to me, because I've been out of touch with it for longer than I would like and watching Rolex reminds me of how much it means to me. I've watched because of the respect that I have for these riders, for the spiritual experience that it is to watch Michael Jung ride around a 4* like it's something that he just wakes up and does every morning after he has his coffee (does Michael Jung even drink coffee? I don't know), for the poetry in motion that is a horse at this level.
When I was a kid I used to dream about riding at Rolex. It was what I wanted. It was that thing out there, that far-off dream, the light at the end of the tunnel, that my middle school self was convinced I would get to one day. Now, it's not that way so much anymore. It's not that I don't think I could ever ride at Rolex—there are people who do their first 4* at fifty, so it's not like I don't have time—but it's that I don't know if I want to anymore. I don't know if I want to ride a 4* cross-country course. I don't know if I want that kind of pressure.
That doesn't mean that I don't want eventing, though.
I've been a lot more settled for the last six months or so, ever since I started to finally feel like I was getting my muscle back and able to once again do those things that I could remember but didn't have the strength for, ever since I started feeling stable in the saddle again and connected to the horse I've been riding, but it's not real. It's not permanent. It gets knocked out of place more easily than I'd like, and no matter how much I try to remind myself that things are so much better than they were, that restlessness is still there at the end of the night.
That restlessness is there because no matter how much better things are than they were a few years ago, no matter how much I finally feel on again, no matter how good things are for a few days or weeks or months, there's still this thing hanging out there, this discipline that I want and love and need because there is nowhere that I feel more at home than out on a cross-country course. My appreciation for the work I do in the sandbox comes from that same place, as does my love for horses who have "the look of the eagles" (as Denny Emerson would say).
In December 2014, I made this post on Twitter:
That's not a goal that has gone away. If anything, it's intensified, because no matter how much I connect with a horse, no matter how much I like it, no matter how well we work together, I'm not going to get that sense of permanence until I don't have to worry about a horse being pulled out from under me. I should be used to it by now, because that's life when all you can afford to do is lesson, but no matter how many times it happens, it's still horrible. It's still something that I want to avoid. It's still something that I can't guarantee won't happen—yet.
I finished my junior year of college on Tuesday. Grades aren't out yet, but I know I haven't failed this semester (by most people's standards, anyway), so I'm on my way to my last year of school. I've got an internship this summer in a good place, and assuming I don't do anything incredibly stupid, I'll probably have a job there after I graduate. I don't want to buy a horse until I have most (or all) of my loans paid off, but it's there. It's not that far-off thing that it used to be. I've got a year of school left, and I'll have to do a bit of saving before I'll have the money to make a purchase, but two years from now I could very well be sitting on that horse I tweeted about almost two and a half years ago.
I'm not planning to buy a made horse. I'm not planning to buy a packer. I'm planning to buy an OTTB who will probably need plenty of time and patience before I'll even be able to think about going anywhere near a cross-country course again, but that's okay. That's fine. That's honestly something that I want, because taking that time was how I found my last partner and built my relationship with him. That's how I build trust. That's how I learn to not be afraid of what's in front of me. That's how I know that we're going to do it together, and I look forward to it.
I look forward to it because while my dreams have changed, while I don't think I'll ever be riding at Rolex (though I won't say never), while my biggest horse dream at the moment is having the land and the facilities to keep my horses in my backyard, I know that one of these days, I'm going to go back to that discipline that made me. Going back to eventing has never been a question of if—it's always been a question of when, and it's so close I can almost touch it again. That restlessness that I'm feeling isn't about feeling lost now—it's about knowing how close I am and how little distance I have left to go.
So sure, I probably won't ever ride a 4*. I don't know if I'll even be making it to a 1*. What I do know is that whatever level I'm at when I make it out at an event again, whether it's beginner novice or novice or whatever else, wherever it is, that first completion is going to be my Rolex. It was the first time that I finished that cross-country course with the knowledge that we'd made it through the whole way even after people told me that we would be eliminated, and I've been waiting for it for so long that I don't know how it could be anything else.
(I just watched Maxime Livio fuck up his first trot diagonal and somehow still wind up in first place by more than a full penalty point because the rest of his test was so good and just??? What are they feeding these Europeans??? We haven't even hit Michael Jung yet and we're already getting sub-45 scores??? I may or may not have screamed and punched my couch because these people should not be possible.)
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