I am considering attempting to become a certified therapeutic riding instructor (CTRI), a process which takes at least two years in the normal course, and involves everything from learning first aid to mucking stalls to spending a lot of time working with seasoned instructors.
If I go down this road, I will have my nose in books such as the Professional Association for Therapeutic Horsemanship International Standards for Certification and Accreditation. This 241-page tome makes a lot of my law school texts look like light reading by comparison. I will learn how to teach a student about emergency dismounts, though some of my students might be paraplegic or deaf. I must become comfortable fitting helmets, accommodating G-tubes in the riding milieu, and managing as many as three volunteers per rider…
It’s a lot. I ask myself: Grace, you are Not Young, you are no sort of athlete, you have little formal training in disabilities, mental health, OR riding pedagogy. WHAT are you getting yourself into?
My initial argument in rebuttal to those reasonable doubts (because lawyer), is: I passed the bar on the first try after four years of working full time and going to law school five nights a week. I might be able wrangle this CTRI thing. Though really, passing the bar isn’t that big of an accomplishment. Most people who make the attempt succeed on the first go.
When did I acquire my first real increments of backbone and confidence?
You can probably anticipate my answer to that question: When I was a single mom with a baby to care for, going for three years on little sleep, managing the money, the mothering, the everything, and more or less getting it all done. I look back on that phase of my life and just shake my head, but good on me for enduring and to a modest extent conquering the challenges before me. (And I readily admit, I enjoyed a ton of privilege in those years too, and I largely brought those challenges on myself.)
In any case, I did not reflexively think of the young, single mom years as my biggest achievement, my biggest bona fide in the “can handle challenges” category. I have no diploma, no professional memberships, no certifications to validate my sense of accomplishment, despite what those years proved to me about my stores of determination and ingenuity.
As far as external validation goes, my biggest feat of grit is a societal so-what, and I expect that’s true for many of us, especially women. We got stuff done, we know what it took to check all the boxes, and now you’d best not mess with us unless you come to
the battle of grit armed with a lifetime of stamina, wiliness, humor, and love, because those end up being the merit badges that really, truly do matter.
What experiences showed you what you are made of, even if no brass band or ticker tape parade celebrated the moment with you?
PS: A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times is now available as an audio book from the web store. More Lord Julian audio is on the way!