riding home

I went on a lengthy trail ride on Wednesday. A guess would be fifteen miles, but it was through pasture and over hills as well as down the road, so one can't be certain.

The beginning was a bit slow - several miles of straight, flat, gravel road. Then we turned off onto a dirt road that wound between a belt of trees and a cornfield. After some time the dirt road petered out, and we made our way into a local farmer's pasture. The next several hours Faith and I conquered steep upgrades and downgrades, creeks to cross, and logs and twigs scattered across the muddy ground. By the time we made our way back out to the road, we had both worked up a sweat, but it had been glorious. Utterly delightful. Challenging, but splendid. A bit worrisome when the back leg of the horse in front of us pummeled through the shaky mud walkway into the running water below, but fun to plow straight ahead anyway.

The last few miles back to the trailer were hard. Because Faith was recovering from an injury this summer, I spent May through August on an arena baby - not out on the trails. Fifteen miles sitting in that saddle was a bit rough on my posterior, not to mention my ankles. Three miles before I finally crawled off, I felt like giving up. Every step my horse took hurt, and when she picked up the trot, oh! My body felt miserable, but my mind was still enjoying the ride. Delight and pain, a feeling of success about my ride and the soreness it created, all swirled together in one odd, unique feeling.

It made me wonder. In a sense, is that how the elderly feel? They've been on a long, long ride. Some flat stretches...sometimes flat stretches for so long it got boring. But then, wham! A cliff is thrown in their face, and they have to jump off - no other option. But then, they make it back up on the other side of the valley, and are exhilarated about life. They've jumped logs, forded streams, and ridden more flat roads. During the last fifth of their life, things get hard. They get sore, and tired, and achey.

Maybe they just want to go home...