A Hard Decision

For about the past two months, I've been considering a rather huge matter with regards to Fancy. At first, it started as a little passing thought in my mind, but as I started taking my feelings into account, I've seen alternate paths present themselves to me as very real decisions to be debated.

The matter I've debated is whether or not to bring Fancy back to school for my senior year.

During my sophomore year, I let the lack of barrel racing events pass me over as a result of Fancy's illness, which kept her out of riding condition for a majority of the year. But this year, we had one barrel show rained out and the recent March 27th one as our only actual entries. There are supposedly another two coming up in May that I still plan on attending. But I am wondering if about two or three barrel races in an entire school year are actually worth it.

What's it to be worth besides the joy I get from doing what I love? I know, as much as I talk about barrel racing being my passion, it's a surprise that I would have other factors weighing me down. But the reality is that I've been incredibly stressed for this time period for which I've had Fancy with me. I've had to deal with being alone, an outcast in the horse community at my school, and I've had loads of stress from the people around me, namely the big-time show girls (who want me to put an English saddle on my very much non-English horse) and my mom (who has been very frustrated with my lack of showing).

Senior year is supposed to be a great one. I want as fulfilling of a year as I can possibly have. But I won't be able to be very happy if I'm under a lot of stress, which I can already foresee from classes and college applications alone. And as much as I love Fancy and rely on her for a huge part of my well-being, the bad aspects of having her around are starting to outweigh the good ones.

I know that my pride will be severely crushed since I won't have "my" horse with me and that I'll have to summon up an amazing bout of willpower to keep myself happy and sane, but sometimes a part of growing up is to decide what's really best for you when there's not a happy ending on either side of the bargain. And now it is time for me to grow up a little more.

So I've decided that Fancy will not be coming back with me next year.