Happy 2020 everyone!

I stayed up a little bit late (like 10:15… I normally go to bed at 9 so that’s late for me) to make sure the horses weren’t worried about the fireworks, and luckily they weren’t. The neighbors have been shooting god only knows what in the woods for the past couple weeks so I guess everyone is well accustomed to the pop-bang-pop-bang noise by now. I sat at the table doing a Harry Potter jigsaw puzzle (sometimes your dork level reaches maximum, what can I say) and watching the horses on the cameras until I was comfortable that there wouldn’t be any trouble, then I went to bed.

But not before coming across this meme, which might be a new favorite. New year, new memes.

I decided a while back that I didn’t want to do a goals post this year. I’ve gotten away from that more and more as time has gone on, and I didn’t feel like it was really enriching my life or adding any value. It kind of just made me want to chase the things that may or may not be the right ones, as time moves on and circumstances change. Maybe instead 2020 is the year of “fuck it, let’s see what happens” and being more receptive to going with the flow and adapting to whatever life may bring, rather than feeling like it HAS to go the way I’ve plotted it out in my head. Not rudderless, per se, but more like sails up and receptive to go wherever the wind takes us.

That was a lot of boat references in one sentence.  My apologies.

Really I think Muddy Mayhem laid out my feelings pretty well in her facebook post yesterday:

This is Marla. Marla is going to say it.
Marla fucking hates new year. She hates people trying to schedule ‘fun’, she hates the competitiveness of looking back at how much she might have (or not) achieved, she hates the weight of expectation that somehow what she has done already wasn’t enough & this year she needs to ‘step it up’ & smash 2020.

Because the thing is, Marla might not have glittering results, frillies, championship qualifications & eleventy billion sponsorship deals but Marla knows this. She did her fucking best.

Yes, sometimes that felt like it fell majorly short. There were still dressage tests that were twatlaps of chaos, show jumping rounds where she couldn’t see a stride even if there had been a massive flashing sign saying ‘Oi Twatchops THIS is the spot you want’ & Cross country rounds where her fuck ups picked up faults & even going training there were visits from The Fuckening that left her doubting whether she should even still be riding, let alone attempting to event. But Marla knows this: every time she went out & put a saddle & bridle on her horse, she wanted to do her best. And you can’t apply a shiny social media filter to & a hashtag to that…because, quite frankly, that is enough.

Marla has learnt that not everyone is going to like her & she can’t change that ( she also gets it because quite often she doesn’t like herself either) but she has a crew of people who, despite her loud, brashness & potty mouth, quite like having her around. They are the people cheering with her when she’s happy, sending her messages when she might be feeling low & inspiring her with a year planner filled in with what she should be aiming for. These are the people that matter, because to these she is enough.

Marla loves her horses. She appreciates the privilege of having them in her life. This last year she has realised that having that beautiful head looking over a stable door happy & healthy means more than any competition result, that doing your best for the horse in your life is more than any frilly. It is enough.

So if any wants Marla she is saying this. She is tiptoeing forward to 2020, with more wrinkles & grey hair, a slightly fatter arse (by the next decade that fucker is going to have its own postcode) but with a dream, a passion & the knowledge that she is enough.

She said it better than I ever could.

So Happy New Year everyone, I wish you all the best! And oi twatchops (which I will now be using on a regular basis, god I love the Brits despite their insistence on all that Brexit nonsense), I hope your fuckenings and twatlaps of chaos are maybe a little fewer and farther between.