I want Chili’s egg rolls. I want salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden. I want pizza from Gatlinburg Brewing on 66 and a great big draft beer. I want ribs and a small sirloin from Texas Roadhouse with a loaded sweet tater. I want a cheeseburger and fries from Five Guys. I want a giant slice of cookie cake.

I think that’s it.

Oh, no, I’m not out of food. I’m not even hungry! I merely want what I can’t have. It’s a metaphor for my life. I have consumed the following today: one biscuit with sausage gravy. One biscuit with blackberry jam. Two eggs, medium. One glass of milk. One sausage patty. Lunch was a bowl of hamburger helper with tomatoes. Supper was red beans & rice with andouille sausage, peppers, onions, and two small garlic rolls. One Mountain Dew and a pack of Little Debbie heart cakes. So now that’s something you know about me. Angela was kind enough to bring me a quart of milk. Why not a gallon, you ask? Because Weigels was out of gallons, that’s why. Evidently everybody suddenly started drinking milk for every meal 🙄 the heck of it is, I stood in the aisle yesterday, looking at it. And I came to the decision I didn’t need any milk. Well, lemme tell you, friends and neighbors, I was WRONG. I did need milk, especially if I wanted to have chocolate chip cookies this weekend. I make myself so mad sometimes. I think I have it all together, and then I do something stupid like not buying milk. Or going to the grocery store after all the eggs and meat are picked over.

But this isn’t what I wanted to write about. I’ve been a bit stir crazy today, believe it or not. I think it’s just this weather that’s strangling us in its icy grip. And it kept snowing today. As if the freezing rain of last night wasn’t bad enough. I am so SICK of feeling like I live in Michigan! Melt already!! …Of course then I’ll gripe about the mud.

I wanted to write about horse girls. Now, some would argue that we’re all horse girls, because what little girl didn’t love horses? And while true, some of us got bit and it just innately changed us. I remember one of the first sales calls I ever made at the Co-op was to a Walking Horse barn. We were standing outside a paddock of yearlings. An inquisitive one came up to the fence and I reached to touch it. The young horse shied before I made contact and the farm manager gently reprimanded me by saying, “We don’t handle them much, we like to keep them kinda high-headed.” Well, that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard! How could you halter them or even catch them? But it was a hard habit to break, and I eventually learned to ask before petting any horses, especially in show barns. It’s still difficult for me to even walk past a horse without yearning to touch it. Even if I don’t, I still speak to it. Everybody likes to be acknowledged, even if you don’t want touched. I don’t ride much anymore, but it’s rare for me to turn down an invitation. I used to ride, Lord, how I used to ride. Every day after school until the sun set. I wasn’t scared of anything. My uncle would bring horses over to pasture to keep the grass eat down. Sometimes they were bred mares, sometimes they were not-yet-broke geldings, sometimes just mean ass ponies. I rode them all. He gave me a hundred dollars a head for every one I green broke. There was a summer I got bucked off every. Single. Day. I didn’t care. When you’re young like that (probably 14 or so) you bounce back up and catch the nag. There’s no laying there to see if you’re dead, or in the very least, what’s broke. You just jump back on and hold tight. I loved the horses. I loved just watching them graze and how they communicated with each other, keeping a certain distance between one another and agreeing on when to move to a new spot, when to water, when to stand in the shade and alternate which hind leg to rest. I’d hang out, unobtrusively, with my book, if they were too far along in their pregnancy to ride. I just loved them. I’d brush them, and braid their manes and tails, and pick hooves, and whisper secrets about which boys I liked and who made fun of my teeth that day. And the thing about true love with horses is you can always go back. It’s never too late, and you pick right back up where you left off. It’s wondrous.

Once you’ve been bitten by the horse bug, there’s no turning back to whatever held your interest before. It’s horse EVERYTHING. You don’t care what it is: cleaning tack, picking stalls, stacking hay, scrubbing water troughs. As long as you get to spend time in the company of horses, you’re content. And you go horse crazy. Instead of buying Seventeen magazine, you’re shelling out for Horse Illustrated. Instead of watching MTV spring break footage, you’re tuned into the Grand Prix. You don’t keep up with celebrities, but you can name every Kentucky Derby winner in the last two decades. The posters on your walls aren’t of your favorite bands, there are pictures of Friesians in snow, or foals in wildflowers. You don’t like Barbies, you play exclusively with My Little Ponies before you graduate to Breyer collectibles. You exclusively read books about horses. You get horse themed birthday cakes and cowboy clothes for Christmas. Your senior pictures are made with your horse, or at least your favorite saddle. You save for custom boots and spurs like some girls save for high end makeup and designer jeans. You beg to go to horse shows, local and in the tri-state area. You consider yourself somewhat of an authority on bits. You have a great idea for a set of reins. You pore over catalogs, starring items and making lists.

Or so I’m told that’s how it goes.

And you go to work for the local feed and seed and you grow their equine department and sell a crap ton of horse feed and you’re living vicariously through your customers who ride all disciplines. You go to Bedford Tack and shop like Elizabeth Taylor, tossing items at the employees who trail you, pushing buggies.

And eventually a poor boy will come along, and he’ll think he can steal your heart, but he’ll come to realize he’ll always be second place. And he’ll be the one to help you fix fence or change a tire on the side of the interstate, and hook up the trailer to go get hay. And you’ll love this boy, and hopefully he’ll love horses, because if not, it’ll never work. Even worse if he loves cows. Men who like cattle don’t like horses because they rarely earn their keep, in a cattleman’s eyes. But if he’s smart, and a true gentleman, he’ll allow for horses, because in the long run, they’re less maintenance than a lot of other things women go for.

So I still see these horse crazy girls in my news feed every day. I love you all dearly. Many of you have a husband and children. But we don’t see candid (or staged) photos of them so much as we see your beloved equines. I see your horse’s new blanket, or the buckle you won, or the perfect lead change you’ve been working on. I see your clean tack room and the nameplate hanging off the stall door at the show. I see a sweaty horse tied to a trailer after a long trail ride. I see you sliding open the doors on these frosty cold mornings, flicking on the lights, and your horses nickering good morning to you. And my heart melts again.

Because I got bit when I was five years old.

So don’t tell me how much you love horses. Tell me about The One. Mine was a blood bay Saddlebred. He would walk through fire for me. There will never be another. I get a knot in my throat still to this day thinking about him, and he’s been gone 25 years.

Buy your daughter a horse. It’s cheaper than any other habit she might develop, and it will teach her a plethora of life skills., including true love.

Love from Appalachia with hoof prints on my heart,

~Amy