My little brother is 12 years younger than me and better than me at literally everything (he’s also not my biological brother, so maybe it’s genetic.) Seriously, though – I dropped out of college, he has a master’s degree. I suck at math, he’s great at it. We both play video games, he beats me at everything we play together. We’ve tried incorporating handicaps to make it more fair but for some reason he’s unwilling to let me break his thumbs which is probably the only way I’ll have a shot. We started archery at the same time, he’s 10,000x better than me. He came to one of the mounted warrior clinics earlier this year – first time he’d picked up his bow in months, I’d been practicing diligently the whole time. Still better than me. I often say I’m thankful he has no interest in horses, because he’d undoubtedly be a better rider than me, too. And the absolute worst part of this, the thing that just makes him literally terrible, is that he’s my best friend and a genuinely wonderful person.

Jerk.

Anyway, we were at the ren faire one day, looking at bows, and he went to trial one. I made an offhand remark that he was better than me and a shop employee looked at me and said “Don’t say that. Comparison is the thief of joy.”

The thing is, it generally does not bother me. The fact that my brother is a better archer than me doesn’t detract from the hard work I put into improving. At the clinic I mentioned earlier, I was so proud of how good he was – of course I jokingly complain that he effortlessly shot the course both left- and right-handed (wtf, man) while my off-hand shots look like someone with no arms took them. When I see someone do something better than me, I might think “I wish I had that level of skill/knowledge/discipline” but it rarely makes me feel bad about myself.

Put me with other equestrians though…hoo boy.

I don’t know why I have this reaction to horse events, but I leave every group encounter feeling awful about myself, my skills, my life….if I had a dollar for every time I’ve driven home from a clinic or group lesson in tears, I’d have my own 80-acre ranch filled with horses I felt too bad about myself to ride.

It’s specifically the group setting and what makes me feel bad is watching other people do things I can’t. No matter how I tell myself logical things like I rode until I was 14 and then took a break until my 40’s and I’m too old and too aware of how bones break to be fearless, how I remind myself I’ve only been riding for 5 years and a lot of that was not consistent due to Griffy’s injuries, and how others have said I’m not a bad rider….I just come apart mentally.

Without the group setting, though….I generally feel pretty good about our progress. I’m totally okay with taking our time until both the horse and I feel comfortable doing things. You may recall me talking about how I felt awful that I was the only in-hand person at the obstacle night clinic. That messed me up for days. But Griffy and I approached the obstacles on our own, in the daylight, in hand, then tacked up, and then finally…we did it! And now, he’s a pro – we can do every obstacle mounted, and he doesn’t even hesitate, although he does try to go to the temptation station after every one.

So…I’m not exactly sure how to approach this. For now, we’re not doing anything in a group, but our next midnight madness clinic is August 24th. I feel like we can probably do the obstacles, but there are 2 other events – a mounted archery course which is a little iffy (I shot off Griffy a week ago but we had someone walking with us) and a barrel course with a lighted sword that I am not at *all* confident in. It’s also a long night mounted – I ride for maybe 30 minutes at a time. Last time it was like 3 hours in the saddle. I just don’t think either of us is in shape for that, and of course we can get off and then back on, but…it’s still a long night and I’m not sure that won’t be too taxing for him (or me, I am by no means one for hours in the saddle either.) My thought is to maybe only do the obstacle course….but we’ll see, I guess, how things go.