It is not a good time to start a blog.
Here are just a few of the reasons I’ve given myself not to start blogging:
Isn’t a blog a little 2005? Isn’t microblogging the hip adventure of the 21st century? Shouldn’t I be focusing on cultivating a better Instagram or Twitter following? Didn’t you try this when you were in high school? LiveJournal is over, please move on.
There are a lot of very good blogs out there. Much better blogs than I could ever write. Do I really need to add more noise to the Internet? The Internet is already Very Loud. Do you have a moral responsibility to avoid the Loud?
Blogs are work. You have to write them, edit them, and (if you care about readers) promote and engage with them. Work is sometimes unpleasant. It would be much easier not to work more. Also you are a professional writer. Don’t you get enough of this at work? What are you doing?
But most of all, I tried to talk myself out of this by reminding myself you don’t even really ride anymore, why are you blogging about horses now? Are you going to write “June 1, didn’t go to the barn again, maybe tomorrow” 50 different times?
Many people want to read about a plucky adult amateur working her way up the levels and balancing work and a social life and horse shows. There’s a lot more action in that lifestyle (and, incidentally, a lot less time for blogging). I could have (should have?) written that blog 18 months ago.
The blog of a slightly chubbier, noncompetitive adult amateur riding once or twice a week doesn’t seem nearly as sexy. I can strongly confirm it is significantly less appealing to a large audience, and tragically un-photogenic (this is why we aren’t Insta-famous).
And yet.
Since temporarily stepping out of the show ring; since leaving the only barn at which I’ve ever ridden; and (most significantly) since moving 1,000 miles away from my lifelong trainer, riding friends, and ponies, I’ve thought about my identity as an equestrian. And as I talk to some fellow late-20s horsewomen, I think I may be onto something here; I think there may be more of us than we realize.
Welcome to Existential Eventing: The Blog. I’ll do my best to update you at least monthly on a new topic, a mix of my experiences and opinions. As I beat my head off a wall trying to get better at photography, maybe I’ll share some of that too.
Most of all, I want to use this space to reassure everyone out there who wonders if they’re betraying the 11 year old inside them who would gnaw her way out of a bear trap if it meant getting to the barn that you’re aren’t. You aren’t a traitor to your dreams; you’re doing great and I’m proud of you.
In a social space full of confident, purposeful equestrians with fabulous lives and a seemingly endless stream of luck, please enjoy this space for the uncertain, the apathetic, the burned out, the existential. Here we go!