As we get older we’re supposed to get wiser.  Okay I’m there in the older part, but the wiser, I’m not so sure of.  And if I really am wiser – it stinks.  Very depressing.

Part of me accepts the being a “Senior Citizen”, especially when I go to Taco Bell and get the Senior drink for free, or get my Social Security check.  I can say things to my grandchildren and they look at me and accept it because I’m old, and old people say stuff like that.

I’m still very active and unload fifteen bags or more of grain with no problem.  I don’t feel like a person who is about to turn 69.  I feel around 50.  So what’s the problem you ask?  Well I’ll tell you a little story.

I went riding with several friends close to my age (but I was the oldest).  For the most part it went well.  The young Thoroughbred my one friend was riding started to act like he wanted to play.  Typical of a young horse with those wahoo blood lines.  She used sound judgement and got off.  She’d broken her back in the last few years and it was a wise decision on her part.  But my old “I can take care of this” attitude cropped up in my head.  All I needed to do was ride him through this, and he’d be fine.  But that little voice on my other shoulder said “What are you thinking?!!!  With your osteoporosis in your spine?  Are you nuts?”  So I choked down my “I’ll do it!” response, and bit my tongue.  Well it hurt (my feelings, not my tongue) and it bothered me.  I knew I could do it.  I’d done it so many times over so many years, but I’m almost 69 now (two months and counting), and if I get hurt who will take care of all my animals.  Bob certainly can’t do it anymore.  But I can do it, I thought, I can push him through this.  I love to do this kind of stuff, I thought.  I’m not that old, I thought.  But the sad thing is, I am.

Boy does all that stuff going on in your head bother you.  It’s like putting another nail in the coffin.  I’m old, sniff, sniff.  It’s the end, sniff, sniff.  I can’t break and train babies anymore, sniff, sniff.  So my trusty psycho horse Zoey thought she’d cheer up her old mom on the way home.  Prancing and dancing, leaping in the air, a little half rear with a hop.  Aires above ground, a roll back, yup she’d make mom feel better about herself.  Hang on to your support hose lady you’re in for a ride.  Five minutes ago we were walking on a dropped rein, totally relaxed, but then again that’s been Zoey’s M.O. since she was a baby.  When I was breaking her you could feel her gathering up.  You could feel her muscles tighten and were just waiting for her to explode.  Well she never did.  She’d take a deep breath, relax all her muscles, and when you relaxed, she’d bolt.  For sixteen years she’s never done anything when she was as tight as a rubber band, but let her relax and all hell would break loose.  We put on a little bit of a show for the neighbor who was out weed whacking, (I hope he was impressed) and pranced on down the street to our front gate.  There putting on her encore performance as I went to open the gate, I wacked her with the crop and she went back to being the quiet Quarter Horse that she had been twenty minutes before.  I looked into her soft calm eyes and said “You’re a psycho Zoey, but your my psycho and I love you.”  She never bucked, she never has, and that little hint of a rear, she has never done before.  Oh boy, something else to look forward to.  Add this to her list of dance moves.

I was telling my girlfriend that this was the real Zoey, not the quiet one that she has ridden at the farm.

As I thought about it later, Zoey showed me that nothing has changed.  That I can still ride the crazies just like the old days.  Nothing has really changed except the fact that I am wiser now.

It’s one thing to ride out an outburst on a horse that you know all her moves.  It’s another thing to ride a horse that you don’t know what he is going to throw at you.  Years ago the other horse would have been fun and a challenge.  Now I’ll just stick with the psycho I raised from a baby and will grow old with.

I don’t feel as old as I did leaving my friend’s house and her horse, I just feel a lot smarter.  I would never want a perfect, pushbutton horse.  Where’s the challenge to improve or progress (or remind yourself that you’re not pushing up daisy’s yet)?  It’s the tough horses that make better riders, and if they never push the envelope you never become more experienced.

When does that age hit for you?  I don’t know.  Only you can make that decision.  Make a wise choice grasshopper, the ground is not as forgiving when you’re pushing seventy.