Do you have a “thing you do” that is actually more of a “thing you used to do” or a “thing you now only very occasionally do”?
I rediscovered one of mine today, and it made me wonder about my friends, acquaintances, and even the random people surrounding me in this cafe. I’m willing to bet that all of them have a thing. I’ll bet when they tell people about this thing, those people are suitably impressed and probably jealous. But none of them are doing their thing right now.
My longest-running and most well-honed thing is performing amazing feats with my horse, Friday. We haven’t competed since 2003, and don’t ride much at all anymore. But every time I do see him, I am struck by what an unbelievable team we are. Even when both of us are rusty and out of shape, we can pull off maneuvers that few in the world can execute.
At our peak, we were world leaders in a couple of different events. Today, though, I hopped on bareback to take Friday for a spin. We ran through our usual warmup, did a couple of technical drills to get our brains synched, and then I asked him for a lope. Lope he did, but in a completely artless way. Had I been watching us at a competition, I would have laughed. His form was terrible, my form was terrible. But it was so much FUN! For the first time in years, I felt like my 11-year-old self, thrilled and awestruck to be riding a horse. I smiled, I laughed, as we zoomed around the arena looking like complete amateurs.
Normally I am terrified of doing anything badly. In fact, doing anything imperfectly is probably my greatest fear (a fear that I am aware of and that I fight, but still). So it felt absolutely fantastic to give myself this permission not only to perform poorly, but to enjoy it! If I were to make a new year’s resolution, this would be a fantastic one—to make mistakes. To give myself license to be subpar sometimes. To have fun at the expense of perfection.
So, what is your thing? Do you still do it? Do you still enjoy it?
