Why Girls Love Horses (v. 2: compare/contrast)

Why Girls Love Horses (v. 2: compare/contrast)

I remember meeting Boy very clearly – summer heat, cool shade, ice cream melting and dripping over my fingers while I tried to lick it up. I can imagine the picture I made, greedily lapping up some mint chip in a way that it got all over my face. I looked up from my sticky hands to find him sitting across from me. He grinned a crooked smile at the teenaged girl with a two-year old’s sweet tooth, and I remember wanting the ground to swallow me up and hide my dangerously rosy cheeks. But he didn’t poke fun at me. While his friends flirted with my friends, he flirted with me. I felt beautiful and special that first day, just like I did the next few days he talked to me.

I remember that first meeting clearly. I often revisit it, cursing my naivety and imagining what I could have done differently – imagining what I could have done to have saved myself from the emotional harm to come.

I remember the first day I met Ranger just as clearly. My expectations for this horse I might purchase lowered slightly when my mom parked the van. The paddocks outside the barn resembled bear exhibits in the zoo, with huge trees and bigger boulders rooted into the dusty ground. The barn wasn’t extraordinary: a simple wooden structure that needed slightly better lighting. I forgot the flaws of the location, however, when I saw Ranger’s long, handsome face over the stall door. He smiled with his eyes, and talked with the expressions on his face, and we understood each other perfectly.

It wasn’t love at first sight. It took two more visits for me to fall for Ranger like I fell for Boy. But falling for Boy was fast and exhilarating and not over soon enough; falling for Ranger was slower, stronger, more powerful.

The last day I saw Boy stands out sharply in my mind. My heart drummed from my head to my toes; my eyes stung from a lack of tears, because I had cried myself out over the last few weeks. I shouted at him for what felt like hours, but he just regarded me as if I were an overprotective, irritating mother: a steady gaze that didn’t take anything in, the corners of his mouth stretched in an impatient way. My heart banged louder, and my shouting with it, until my voice failed and I could scream at him no longer. I settled for glaring daggers at that point, but I think a trace of my dejection played across my face; he rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever,” before turning on his heel and walking away. He never looked back.

The next day my voice didn’t work, which saved me from having to explain the pointed “I-told-you-so” looks off of my friends’ faces. I didn’t have to confess that I gave up on boys, at least for now. I didn’t have to tell them that I blamed myself for the pain and self-doubt ravaging my mind. Instead, I waded through my low self-esteem, weighted down by pizza and ice cream — just not mint chip.

I will never forget the day Ranger left. My heart thudded painfully in my chest; my eyes stung from trying to hold back the flood of tears threatening to pour down my cheeks. I pressed my lips together tightly, afraid that if I opened them, the sobs looming in my throat would escape and shatter my brave face. I wrapped my arms around Ranger’s warm neck tightly, and felt his nose touch my back. I made myself let go before I decided to permanently attach myself there and turned to face the woman, his new owner, smiling sympathetically into my face. I handed her the lead rope and thanked her, hoping she didn’t notice my lips tremble when I smiled at her.

My mom told me all sorts of reassuring things during the drive home. “He’s going to a great place;” “You can still visit him;” “Don’t think about losing him, think about when you had him.” Hearing these words – the kind of consoling things you say at a funeral – didn’t make it any easier to hold back the tears, but I managed to keep my eyes dry the entire way home, and several days after.

Boy was my first romantic relationship. Ranger was my first love. Each of them changed my life and who I am as a person. Boy tore holes in my heart and I became more defensive about, but in desperate need of, love. He exploited me and my desperation for acceptance. He asked me for everything I was willing to give, and when he asked for something I didn’t want to give, he tried to get it from someone else. He beat me, cut me, hurt me to the core. But all that hurt created room for healing and resistance. I am stronger for what the Boy did to me. But even the bad and the good things that came from Boy can’t compare with what I still feel for Ranger. Ranger and I acted as partners, never one without the other. There was no pressure, no lying, no secrets. Ranger and I were love in its truest form, because we were untainted by the labels and standards humans apply to their relationships. Where Boy had torn me down, Ranger helped me back up, and lifted me higher.

Everyone knows that the average five-year old girl dreams of having her very own horse. She fantasizes about a fluffy, cute pony (preferably pink) with a desire to be dolled up and covered in sparkles. When that girl turns into the average sixteen-year old, the pink pony has been replaced by Mr. Gorgeous Football Player with the dimples. I thank heaven every day for sending me both Boy and Ranger, because together they have taught me the most important lesson in life.

Boys drool. Horses rule.