Getting Back on the Horse

In life, love, work, and quite literally

I went horseback riding recently for the first time in almost 40 years. Or rather, I went timidly clomping around the ring, the horse held by the instructor, while I watched my ten-year-old trot and post like a pro.

Climbing up the little plastic two-step staircase to mount (sounds sexual, sorry) my assigned stallion (gah, sexual again!), my legs were shaking.

“You really think I can do this?” I asked the teacher.

“Yes! Just swing one leg over.”

“You got this, Mom,” my daughter shouted from across the ring.

With a little yelp, I grabbed the horse’s mane plus the reins and somehow, inelegantly, righted myself. And wow, was it higher up there than I remembered. Why was I now scared of heights? My shoulders tensed. My knuckles turned white from clutching the reins so tightly. The bike helmet I was wearing — that I’d quickly snatched from a bin in the garage — slipped sideways. All the while, I tried to smile in my daughter’s direction, too afraid to take my hands off the reins to give her a thumbs up sign.

I’ve inelegantly righted myself many times lately.

When the horse started moving, I gasped. Was it always this rocky?! I felt like I was on a soon-to-capsize ship. Would I be able to do it? Would I fall off, get a concussion, become paralyzed, or even die?!! I played out all the terrible outcomes in vivid detail. (I do this all the time. Anyone else?)

Ambulances swirled in my mind, then surgeries, wheelchairs, ramps in my home, and then, on to my funeral which I replan daily. (I keep changing the venue.) One therapist said I do this to force myself to live more fully in the present. Clearly I can’t just meditate like everyone else; I need a casket to ground me.

On the horse, I was terrified. The fact that I rode for years as a little girl — until my allergies got so bad I had to quit — didn’t help. Turns out my muscle memory is just as terrible as my actual memory. The only thing I seem to have a permanent capacity for storing away is every single book plot.

With bestselling author and close friend Sarah Mlynowski at Zibby’s Bookshop

And yet, as I listened to the instructions, walked around the ring, and realized I was okay, I started to relax. My shoulders released from their perch just under my ears. My fingers unclenched. By the end of the session, I even trotted in a circle around my teacher for about 30 seconds. It wasn’t pretty, but I did it.

Dismounting, I closed my eyes and held my breath, clinging to the saddle for dear life as my body slid down the horse’s side. Finally, my feet were back in the dirt. It wasn’t until I took a wobbly step forward that I realized my inner thigh muscles were on fire.

“Oh, you’re going to be sore in places you didn’t even know you had,” the teacher cautioned, chuckling.

“Good job, Mom!” My daughter called out, beaming at me.

“Thanks, love!” I said, beaming right back.

I’ve gotten back on many metaphorical horses in the last eight years. I got divorced after having four kids and fell in love again — and boy, being with someone new after a decade of marriage? Um, wow. Put yourself in my shoes (or, bed) for a moment and try to visualize that as if it were you. (You’re welcome.)

With Kyle as I turned 40.

I’ve restarted my career in ways I never could have imagined back in my cubicle at Unilever Prestige working on the launch of the Vera Wang fragrance before heading off to business school in 2001.

I’ve relaunched my own writing. Staying “home” with my kids in an environment not exactly encouraging of my writing, I had years of pent-up thoughts, essays, stories and commentary trapped in my over-thinking brain. It was like a pressure-filled faucet that wouldn’t turn on; the noise of rushing water in the pipes was loud, but nothing came from the tap.

Until, boom. The valve switched and the force of all that agitated water came shooting out. The last eight years have brought countless (well, not really, I could count them) essays, Instagram posts, articles, even entire books. A memoir. A novel. And so much more unpublished. Now that I know the tap works, I’m trying hard to use all that water because what if it shuts off again?!

Life has definitely been rocky as I’ve navigated new terrain. I’ve clutched the reins of change for dear life. But, ironically, it has been my kids (and my not-so-new-anymore paramour, now my husband ) helping me through, just like my daughter did in the ring. It has been the kids cheering me on as I tackle revisions on my novel or when I debate acquiring a new manuscript.

It’s them who say, “You got this, Mom,” when I sigh and stress over my overflowing inbox. It’s them who I think about when I launch a new business line or start a new project.

I decided to upend my life at almost 40 years old in part to model for the kids what it meant to be a happy mother, one who could share her voice the way I want them to share theirs. Who knew that after almost a decade, we would really be helping each other?

My daughter and I held hands as we walked back to the car, our helmets swinging in our free hands. We looked at each other and smiled.

Yes, I thought. We got this.

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What horse are you afraid to get back on? Or, what horse have you gotten back on lately? How’d it go?