This week I received some devastating news, my horse will never jump again. Now to most of you it sounds like a strange thing to be devastated about, but as an "eventer" (the horse person that jumps trees and things, and regular jumps really really fast, and does fancy things in a top hat) it's an entire career change for both me and him. I now have to put my dreams on hold for a few years and rehabilitate him so that he can have a different career that he enjoys. The worst part about it, is knowing that he will never get to do what he loves most, again. I've never seen a horse happy then when he flew around the arena.

So we're coping and we're figuring out what next. You might be sitting there going "that's sad but why do I care?" well what I'm talking about here is learning how to be flexible when life forces you to detour.

Life happens. The person you thought you were going to marry left, you have a career ending injury, a tree fell on your house, things happen and there is nothing we can do about it.

In the moment, you may want to cry, scream, cuss, yell, or hit something (sometimes all of the above). You feel hopeless and lost, all you can think is "now what?". It's a moment that crushes all of those dreams you had, all of those plans you created are gone. It's a heart shattering feeling and it's even worse when someone is watching you.

With my horse's injury, I watched all of the competitions we were going to do go out the window, I watched my dream of teaching others with him disappear, and I watched as all of my cross country plans were evaporated in a moment, and knew I would never see his ears swing forward and watch him take control like that again, I watched his happiest moments disappear, and I felt like I was going to fall apart.

Meanwhile he's just standing there, munching on hay, looking like nothing's wrong with the world, and then begging for a cookie...jerk...

This whole time I have the vet and my barn manager watching me soak in this news and I know that they know that all I want to do is cry. I wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and not leave for a week, but I had acting class in 20 minutes so that wasn't exactly an option. But I'm glad it wasn't.

For the next two days I was running around and barely had a moment to breathe, let alone cry about him. For me it was a good thing, it kept my mind busy and allowed me to realize that all he needs is a career change.

So I took a deep breathe and realized there was nothing I could do about it and dealt with the situation in front of me. Now that's not saying that a few tears didn't slipped out when people would ask me about it, because I was still sad, but I coped.

If this has taught me anything, it's to be flexible with life. To realize I don't have control over every situation and to do what I can do and move on. It's only been four days since I got the news, so I'm still not 100% but I'm learning to cope. In a few years I'll be able to find another partner to compete with, but my horse has a forever home with me. So now I just have to do my best to adjust him to his new life.

So my advice to ya'll that may be dealing with a similar life changing situation, take a breath, let it hurt, and then deal with what you can and move on. Life is terrible sometimes but you can always learn from it.