In 6 days, I’m turning 50.

Yes, yes, I know – it’s better than the alternative, age is just a number, at least I have my health, blah blah blah. If you don’t want me to roll my eyes at you, don’t say stupid shit. No, I’m not “excited” for my birthday. No, I don’t have anything planned.

Last year a woman who used to board at our barn died in a car accident. I didn’t really know her, she left pretty soon after I got there, so it didn’t really affect me personally although of course I’m sorry for the death of a fellow horsewoman and someone who was close to my other barn friends. Her horse was retired, and she had recently moved him onto her own property to live out his remaining years.

I bet she thought she had a lot of time left.

I bet she looked forward to all the times she would be able to wake up and look out the window and watch him grazing in the sunrise. I bet she thought about all the time she would get to spend brushing him, and the things they would do together even if it wasn’t riding.

A while back I decided that the way to make Facebook not an absolute cesspool was to join every horse group I could find, especially ones dedicated to haflingers and friesians. I didn’t realize then that most of them were horses for sale, but now I enjoy looking at the ads. And I find myself often thinking of my next horse. Daydreaming of the six figure friesian I’m going to import from somewhere fancy.

But as I was thinking about the boarder that passed, and my upcoming birthday, it occurred to me, for the first time in my life, the number of “nexts” I have is not infinite.

We all say we want to ride until we’re a hundred, but let’s be honest, not a lot of us get that. And let’s be really, brutally honest, what are any of us doing to make that a reality? Do we take care of our bodies like we should? Do we work on what’s going to keep us fit and strong and functional? Shoveling manure and hauling around hay bales ain’t it.

For a lot of reasons I haven’t ridden much this year. They’re none of them very good reasons. But it I started thinking about Griffy and Talos. And how absolutely, ridiculously, stupidly lucky I am that they’re my horses.

I mean how many people get lucky enough to own horses like this the first time they own horses?

While all of these thoughts about having a finite number of “nexts” and not fully appreciating what I have now and chasing some vague future idea that will be perfect were rattling around in my head, before they fully crystallized, I read a fantasy book that had a race of people. And they had this proverb:

You ride the current you have, or you don’t fly.

That hit me really hard. It’s so perfect. You work with what you have, or you sit it out – dreaming of some mythical future that surely does not exist the way it does in your mind, while you stay stuck on the ground, watching everyone else ride the currents. And from the ground, of all their currents look perfect, but if you asked them, they would tell you all the ways they weren’t.

I don’t know how many years I have left, but I want to spend the rest of them on whatever currents I have.