Drowning

I am so stressed and overwhelmed. I have a ton of high-pressure work projects coming up, with no end in sight. I'm going to a few writers' groups and trying to push myself to write more. I've totally been neglecting any and all domestic duties, so the place is a mess and my SO has been doing all the cooking. And it seems that every time I go to the stable, it magically takes me longer and longer to even just groom Marve or tack him up. I haven't had time to practice braiding; between grooming his filthy gray coat, tacking up, riding, cooling him down, hosing him off, cleaning him up, sweeping the aisle, etc. etc. the stable is about ready to close for the night. But I still desperately need to practice braiding.

The show is coming up next weekend (or this weekend, since I seem to be writing this after midnight on Sunday night) and I'm just starting to realize how crunched for time I'll be on show day. Even though I'm not competing until the afternoon (pre-beginner, beginner, intermediate classes go first) this is going to be a very busy show (they're opening it up for the first time for outside people to trailer in), so riders/groomers aren't allowed to show up until certain times. I can't come to start cleaning Marve and tacking him up until an hour and a half before my ride time. This seems ridiculous to me, but there's going to be so much activity, so many horses being moved around, and so many spectators that they want to keep things as structured as possible. I can come out the night before to wash him, braid him, etc, but lord knows he's going to be a mess by the time the afternoon of show day comes along. Not to mention that I also need to clean all his tack the night before the show....I just don't know how I'm going to have time to do all this.

On the plus side, I can get Marve to trot in hand now. And I've been working on some possible exercises the judge might make us do in equitation without stirrups. Even though I have ridden Marve without stirrups before, for some reason I was so scared that if I tried a certain exercise at the canter without my stirrups, I'd fall off. This weekend I spent nearly an hour riding around, trying to get up the courage to ask for a canter w/out stirrups while doing this exercise. When I finally did it and he started cantering, I realized, oh, this isn't hard at all! It's actually way easier to canter this without stirrups than to deal with his bouncy trot!

Of course, the second time I tried it without stirrups, I couldn't get him to stop cantering. That will go over nicely in the show during the individual exercises!

I am still set for the advanced division, which still makes me nervous. But at least I will be competing with older teens and adults (and, apparently, some outsiders trailering in) instead of kids. And I keep reminding myself that there is a difference between feeling embarrassed for not being able to execute all the elements perfectly and getting hurt. So maybe I won't get a ribbon all day, but so what? At least I'll (hopefully) learn a lot.

That's not to say that I don't still feel so old. I should have learned to do all this stuff -- braiding, what to do in a showmanship class, and so on -- when I was a teen, not now as an adult. But I guess you have to learn some time, and if I ever want to go to shows one day when I own a horse, it's good I learned now.