perfect record... no more

I have been riding horses for more than two years now.
BJ has often marveled at the fact that I have never fallen, never been thrown, and have never been injured.
Especially with the way I ride. Running whenever I can. All day long. Pushing everyone (Sunny, me, BJ, and Bo) to their absolute limits.

I can no longer say I have never been thrown from a horse.
We were riding up above Kamas, just off the Mirror Lake Highway. There was a stretch of trail just perfect for running in. I let Sunny go first, running FULL speed. It was awesome.
I saw the stream up ahead. Decided I did not want to approach that quite as fast as we were going. I wasn't sure what he'd do.
He'd either:

• Jump it, which was a BIG jump, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.
• Run through it, which would have been okay.
• Stop entirely.

Jumping it and stopping take two entirely different postures. I couldn't prepare for both.
I pulled back on the rein to get him to slow down. That put me a little off balance.
He stumbled. I flew over his shoulder, did a flip and landed on my back.
His hoof grazed my face... just enough to give me a black eye and a bloody nose.

I remember the thought as I landed was, "Not so bad," and then, "OH SHIT!"
BJ was far enough behind me that he couldn't see me. He says he heard the air go out of my lungs. And came upon me bloody and gasping for air.He was scared of internal injuries. I couldn't tell him what hurt (other than my face), because I didn't know. I was able to pull myself up onto the horse, but I couldn't keep myself balanced. Every time Bo would start to trot a little faster, I'd see stars again. My hands and feet would go numb, and I thought I was going to pass out.

I am very gifted at not passing out when I feel like I am going to. I kept consciousness and within an hour was telling funny stories. Only I kept forgetting what I was saying. The words got all jumbled. Which made me laugh at myself even more.
There was a part of me that felt really bad for falling. I was worried he wouldn't let me ride anymore. (He had once told me if I ever got hurt, I was done. It turns out, he mean, if I ever got hurt because I was acting out on eating disorder schtuff, I was done.) I felt bad because we ended the ride with a lot of daylight left... which I hate to do.

There was another part of me that was dang proud that I had just fallen off a horse. Kind of like a "badge of honor". What horse person has never gotten hurt by a horse?

Now, I'm totally legit.
And I think I'm healing quite nicely.