Horse (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Horsing around in Ohio with a cousin

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with H for Horse.

As a child, I loved hopscotch, and I was good at it too, which seems odd to me now. I’ve never had great hand-eye coordination, my ankles have always been weak (and my hands too), and my balance has been shaky forever. I used to create my own hopscotch grids and practice for hours, but only against myself. Same goes for jumping rope and roller skating. Without the stress of a team, I could relax, enjoy, and improve. I was also good at tennis and badminton, one on one, though the high school tennis coach wouldn’t let me try out due to my weak grip, which was probably for the best.

I sucked at all team sports. The anxiety over the idea of messing up and having everyone mad at me ensured that my focus was scattered, and then I always messed up. Nobody wanted me on their team, just like in the song (“At Seventeen”). I was one of the last to be chosen every time, which made me dread gym class and everything associated with it. I never “failed” gym due to the fact that at some point each quarter there would be a written test on the sports we learned, and of course I would get a high score on that.

I rode my bike a lot and swam sometimes. Jumped rope a ton in our Illinois basement when it was snowy out and I was obsessed with my weight. As a teenager, I ordered odd gadgets off the TV to exercise with, like a pulley thing to attach to a door. Unfortunately, as I aged, I began to have back problems, so I had to stop doing jarring types of exercise, including my beloved hopscotch. Running/ jogging was never my thing, but I've always loved walks. Not hikes! Just regular walking, which is supposed to be the best thing for you anyway.

Once, when I was around 12, I rode a horse when we visited my mom's family in Ohio. I was so achy the next day! I think that was the only time I've been on one, and if I tried it now, my back would hurt so much afterward I'd probably need a wheelchair. I also fed a baby goat with a bottle and fell in love with a litter of kittens that crawled all over me. That was all during the same visit. A few years later, I was trying to catch bugs for a science project while we visited, but they got so gross in the preservative that I threw them all out and wrote a report instead.

This post drifted all over the place, but that's how misty memories are...