Summer’s almost over, and the equestrian community of Texas has breathed a massive sigh of relief while they look forward to days when they don’t have to get up at the crack of ass to ride. This is the flyer C. designed for mounted warrior classes:

You know what makes me sad? I’m not in a singe one of those pictures.

(Okay, technically the bottom left black & white is me, you just can’t tell. But stay with me, I have a point.)

I’m not upset to be left out because I care about being in the pictures. I mean, I do, a little, but I’m upset by what it represents – that I haven’t really done anything to further my goal of being a mounted archer in forever. Didn’t ride in the last clinic. Didn’t do the last few practices before we had to pause because we were all about to die of heat stroke. Haven’t practiced on my own. Shit, haven’t even picked up my bow in weeks.

The first time I ever saw a mounted archer, it was in 2019 at the Texas Archery Festival.

I knew the moment I saw it, that I was born to do it.

Funnily enough I had just started archery 2 months earlier. I used to have a tradition where I’d drag my little brother on some crazy adventure for my birthday, and that year I just happened to get a Groupon for an intro to archery class. We had so much fun we decided to sign up, and had been going to the range once a week since then. I had no idea mounted archery was a thing, but man…when I found it, I wanted that so badly.

I look back on that & shake my head – at the time I weighed 314 lbs, had not ridden regularly since I was 14, and could barely hit the broad side of a barn with an arrow. Now I weigh less than I ever have in my adult life, I own two horses, both of whom have had arrows shot off of them, and I can at least hit the side of a large stationary object with a bow & arrow, and yet….I’m really not making any progress with mounted archery. I bowed out of the group classes because they were making me a miserable ball of anxiety. I haven’t practiced with either horse in forever.

There have been times in the past when I’ve not only pursued MA, but done some objectively crazy shit for it. Like the random “Warrior Women” weekend I flew to California for in 2021:

2 years later I went back and did my own private MA clinic:

The first time I went to South Texas Archery Riders, the guy who runs it watched me do one canter down the lane, laughed, and said “You really undersold your ability.”

When I started writing this entry, I had this whole whiny paragraph asking why I can’t do this, what is the barrier, what is wrong with me. I didn’t finish before I went to bed and I had a dream, the details of which are fuzzy, but the parts I do remember: I was riding a horse, western style (which I never do, I’m strictly an English rider) with a trainer named Ryan Rose (odd choice, as I like his YouTube channel but have no particular desire to actually ride with him.) My former boss and my best friend from High School were coming to watch me. I asked Ryan to hold the horse while I ran to the bathroom, and in the process of just peeing I suddenly decided I need a shower. For some reason I thought I could shower & change in 5 minutes or less….when I got back out there, everyone was gone except my former boss who told me everyone was worried about me because I just disappeared and Ryan Rose had to go.

I know that sounds weirdly random, but the message to me is obvious: The problem with my riding, the reason I’m not progressing is…me.

I’m afraid of actually achieving my goals. Being in a place where I desperately want something, but don’t actually have the means to achieve it, is a place I’ve been a lot in my life. It’s easier to wish for something than actually work to achieve it, because there’s no possibility of failure in just dreaming of doing something. But my problem now is I’ve managed to remove basically every barrier to actually doing mounted archery I had and now….I have no excuses left. Just my own nonsense.

That was hard to admit…but there it is, I guess. It’s a weird contradiction to be a goal-oriented person who is simultaneously afraid of achieving anything.

I don’t have a good ending here….I guess I need to sit with this a while & figure some things out.