On the other side of "The Hill"

"Success isn't just about natural-born talent. If you put in the time, persevere and work harder you can do amazing things" Nicholas Sparks

The goal was pretty simple, make it through the "Over the Hill" show. Try not to embarrass myself, Joker's owner Jess or Etta our riding coach. I think we managed to meet the goal, and then some. We not only got through it, we rocked it. We came home with a second place for Showmanship and a forth place for Western Pleasure Walk/Trot. I could find lots of ways to devalue our outcome, it was novice classes, others had major incidents in the classes, but screw that. WE ROCKED IT! I could not be happier with our result and quite frankly more shocked by it.

To prove that I have to share the funniest moment of the day...when they announced our placing for Western Pleasure....I did something I need to learn not to do..I whooped still sitting in line and out of my mouth came "Holy Shit". There is photographic evidence of it....

As I said in my previous post about this show, this show was about deciding for me if I really had what it took to do this, not in the way of winning ribbons and placings, but if this is where I belonged. I found my answer. My friend Paul put it way better than I could have.

"Congrats Pam. I'm proud of you. You have graduated. You are no longer an aspiring Horsewoman. You've made it!"

Not only did I ride and find my stride but I can say not once while I was in that arena did my weight cross my mind. I was so worried what people would think seeing me on a horse, but yesterday I only saw one thing when I looked at the stands. A lot of really special people around me who believed in me long before I did and were there to remind us we are not in this alone....affectionately now known as "Team Joker". I looked up and saw our coach, Theo (he doesn't have a title but is there for everything it seems), my adopted show parents Carole and Neil (they are Etta's parents but I adopted them at some point) and so many friends. I was shocked yesterday that some people drove nearly 2 hours to watch us ride...friends from Lifetime, horse friends Kathy and Liz, Joker's mom Jess, Janet who got me all into and her daughter Amanda. They all dropped what was going in their lives to be there for us.

And the face that I seemed to find first every time around, our groom for the day Jordy. Who has to get mentioned because she not only was there for everything we needed yesterday before I could even ask, she got up at 3am to go on this adventure with us.

I don't think any of these people will ever realize how much them being there meant to me. I tend to get feeling sorry for myself because my family isn't in my life for the moments that matter, I will probably never see anyone with DNA I share standing on the other side of that rail, but it hit me yesterday as I stood back from the trailer and looked at the number of people there hanging out with Joker and I, I have no reason to feel sorry for myself, DNA means nothing, yesterday was one of those few times in my life I truly felt loved unconditionally!!!!!!!!