When you get bucked off the horse, you gotta get back on!

This post topic was suggested by my mother, mom, mommy, best friend, whatever you wish to refer to her as.

Back in early middle school sometime, I was on a scout camp out by Sand Hallow Reservoir. We were riding horses out in the sand dunes having a jolly ol’ time. There were 4 or 5 of us out on this ride and we were galloping through the sand dunes Arabian Knight style. Straight up booking it. Well my horse’s front hoof caught an air pocket and went out of stride. The horse decided its best option was to tuck its head and roll, disregarding the fact that I was on its back. Next thing I know my face slams into the sand and the horse rolls over top of me and lands right back on his feet. Other than some scrapes on my face and feeling pretty sore and shook up I was ok. But the horse got a broken nose (serves him right). But after taking a bad spill I had to get back on the horse and ride back to camp. Ironically I have not ridden a horse since then. Not because I’m scared, I just haven’t been around any horses.  Getting bucked off a horse is a lot like dating, and this year I took a bad spill so to speak. And that is what this post is about.

Over Christmas break I was doing the unthinkable, reading a book under my own free will. That’s how bored I was this particular night. I happened to have my laptop with me open to Facebook. I noticed a post from a girl I was friends from high school, even though we had never really talked to each other. Her status said “Having a date night with Mr. Redbox” (or something to that affect) and I decided that since obviously she wasn’t having the ideal night either, I’d send her a message just for the heck of it. We began talking and ended up messaging back and forth pretty late into the night. I got her number and we continued to text quite a bit over the next couple weeks and we wanted to hang out but our schedules were completely opposite making it very difficult. I finally convinced her to come to Krave with me late one night after she got off work. Neither of us was expecting anything because the majority of our conversation was centered around the fact that she was leaving to Florida for seven months on an internship to work at Disney World. We sat outside Krave that night and talked till well after they closed, and even after I took her back to her car at her work we sat and talked for another hour or two.

For the next few weeks we were inseparable. Any waking moment that we weren’t working, we were together. We fell hard and fast for each other. After a few weeks the dreaded day came that she moved to Florida. We decided that we cared enough about each other that we wanted to make it work until she came back. We text and talked every day and about a month after she left I couldn’t take it anymore and needed to see her so I took a trip to Florida and spent a week with her visiting all the parks. We had a great time and loved every minute of it. When I had to say goodbye I could tell things were serious when we were both sobbing as the shuttle came to pick me up to take me to the airport. The next few months there wasn’t a day we didn’t talk. I kept in close contact with her family and visited them often, watching movies and playing games with them. It turned out her little sister who I had grown to love as my own sister got accepted to do the same internship as her so she’d be moving to Florida as well. This is where things began to get a little sketchy.

She had mentioned she was thinking about applying to extend until January so she could stay the whole time her sister was there. I obviously was not a fan of this idea but said that whatever she wanted to do I’d support her, but that I wanted her to come home so we could see where our relationship could go. There had been discussion of the “M” word, so it blew my mind that she’d want to keep herself across the country from me for another 7 months. We discussed this touchy subject a thousand times and the more it was discussed the more I didn’t want her to stay, and the more torn she became because her family wanted her there, and she wanted to finish the program with her sister like they had dreamed about for so long.

In May her sister moved down to Florida so I decided to take yet another trip down so I could help her sister get everything down, but mainly just to see her. This trip was not as smooth as the first. There was a little contention because of all the stress of getting her sister settled in. They had not seen each other in months, and we of course wanted some alone time as well so her sister felt left out. We tried to include her but also wanted to have a few days to ourselves since I’d be leaving soon. The dreaded day came that I left Florida again. I was sick to my stomach the night before I left.  She was at her apartment and I was in the hotel packing. I was so sick I even threw up a couple times. I text my dad and told him I’d never felt like this before and he called me and we had a good heart to heart. My dad and I are close but we don’t really talk too much about serious matters so this conversation meant a lot to me and he gave me some great advice. That night I threw up several more times and I could not stand the thought of leaving because I didn’t know if I’d be seeing her in a month, or if she would get accepted to stay and I wouldn’t see her until January. That was hands down the worst goodbye of my life. I went back home to Saint George and a few weeks later she told me that she had decided to apply to extend. I did not approve at all and I was pretty upset about it but I knew it was important to her so I tried to be supportive. Obviously I didn’t do a good job.

A few weeks after she began acting strange. Texts were few and far between. Our phone conversations seemed really distant, and I could tell something was not right. After a few days of this going on I was at work and we were texting each other and I confronted her on how she had been acting and I wanted to know that everything was alright. It wasn’t though. She broke up with me via text. Classy right? I tried calling her but she wouldn’t pick up and neither would her parents. To add insult to injury it was the day before our anniversary  and I knew she had the day off so I sent her flowers along with a box of her favorite DVD’s, popcorn, candy, and other miscellaneous things so her and her sister could have a movie night since I knew they didn’t have much money.  Most girlfriends would think I’m a freaking gem, but instead she dumped me! Then a few weeks after the breakup I heard through the grapevine that she didn’t get accepted and ended up coming home when she was original scheduled to.

I thought I had that part of my life planned out and just like that it was over. I may or may not have spent the next month sitting at home being depressed while watching every single episode of Lost, mingled with work and five rounds of golf a week. Not the proudest time of my life. But now that it has been a while since all that has happened it’s time to get back on the “dating horse” so to speak. I’ve been on several dates since then but never took any of them too serious. I guess it’s time to give it a real shot again.

I could have gone into a lot more detail about the relationship and how I all unfolded but that is a basic outline. I haven’t spoken to her since the breakup but I wish her the best with whatever she’s doing. But as for me, I’m getting back on the horse! I was reminded of a good lesson last night. “We’re on the Lords time table, not our own.” So I guess as much as I wanted for that relationship to work out, it wasn’t right.  So no matter what, “When you get bucked off the horse, you gotta get back on”