Ribbons

I remember the first time I saw him, cowboy boots and all. He didn't notice me at all to intent on the competition. I was the competition. Three years he has taken home the big blue ribbon. I am just a rookie at this playing field, but competition is still competition. He would race his horse the hardest no matter his chances. Even looking back now my focus was not where it should have been, being my naive self thought I could pull out a win and see him eating the dust of my horse.

I was being stupid, all the mistakes for some blue ribbon and a bunch of flowers that would wilt by the next competition.

He couldn't win this time, I wasn't going to let him, barrel was my bread and butter; he wouldn't know what hit him. Speed, that's all I needed was speed and lots of it.

I was careless. I pushed my horse to hard, not only would I pay the price, but she would too for a stupid blue ribbon.

His number was called first: I saw his horse before I saw him....a paint. Typical.

His control and respect for his horse and his limits was unmatched by anyone else that went before him, he knew his horses strengths and weaknesses and helped his horse move past them, incredible is what the judges said, outstanding is what everyone else said. I will beat him is all I thought.

My turn came faster then expected

Coming out of the gate was the last thing I remember, speed and rounding the barrel...then nothing. I don't remember hitting the ground or even falling off the horse, it was just dark, no pain, no noise, no light.

I would find out later when I came too what happened.

My horse had fallen and crushed me in the process, she was alright but not the limp rider that dangled from the saddle, she pulled a muscle of some kind and I got a lot worse. Broken femur, collarbone, wrist and a fractured skull.

Looking back I do remember, I remember feeling my bones shatter as if they were toothpicks, I remember the pounding in my head and the intense agony that flowed across my whole body. Blue, blue everywhere, the sky and the ground. Both blue, the shade of the ribbon, blue. I remember being freed from the saddle that my boot was tangled in, I remember only his face. The boy that had gone before me, his face, he reached me first. Unlike the others that surrounded me he focused only on me, not my mistake. He rode with me to the hospital and stayed by through all the surgeries.

We became close friends and later something more, he doesn't see me for my mistakes; instead seeing my scars as a way of healing, he has taught me so much more than anything I learned through racing with my horse. So many things I can't even describe. Today, even though he sees my fear and knows that I might never ride with horses again he understands. As he did in the competition that day he is helping me overcome my weaknesses and reach the limits of my strengths. He knows nothing of how I long to be in the saddle again without him sitting behind me, he has no idea that his positivity and patience is training me to be better than the worth of a blue ribbon and I can't ever pay him back. Though with each step closer to my goal I know that I already am.