paradigm shifts

When I think about being in high school, I think about being the most focused and unfocused I've ever been in my life. I was an under-achiever, an unimpressive student, a math-flunker and a non-joiner. I sailed through my years at that small, private school without really paying attention to what was going on around me. I would not have labelled myself as being foremost a student.

At that time, I was exponentially more focused as an equestrian athlete. I was in the best shape of my life, then. Instead of doing homework or thinking about high school, I was riding six days a week. I didn't study for exams, I stayed at the barn until late at night practicing dressage movements. Spent early autumn getting fences set as quickly as possible when the sun hung low in the sky to get in a few good jumping courses before dark. I went to horse shows. I braided manes and tails, I screwed studs into iron horseshoes for grip on the grass. I braved the cold in the wintertime, drove on icy country roads, picked iceballs out of my horse's feet, felt the annoyance of permanently numb toes and fingers. I rode on the hottest days of the year, had arena sand and my own sweat make a paste all over my body, let the sun heat the water in my bottle, felt my breeches cling to the skin on my legs.

When I think about being a teenager, I think about the familiar clinking sound of spurs on stirrup irons, and the way it feels to swing up into the saddle for the millionth time. I think about the steady feel of a horse's mouth through the reins in my hands. I think about sitting in lawn chairs outside the horses' stalls at shows, exhausted and happy and satisfied with our efforts. It was a time that I was committed to something real.

Now I think about my horse sitting around in a field, eating endless bales of hay, getting enormously fat, unfocused and unkempt. I think about my muscles falling from fitness, my sense of rhythm slipping away. How my focus is trained on schoolwork: writing essays, studying for finals, completing projects, assembling portfolios. I have a fear inside of me that I've become foremost a student.

How could I have so seemlessly made that shift without realizing it?