Change of Routine

In high school, riding horses was a huge part of my life.  I would go to the barn almost every day to ride, and I felt good about my skill level and felt like I’d found a place I belonged.  I knew that going to college was going to change this, because it was an unrealistic goal for me to ride every day; it was both expensive and time consuming.  I knew I wanted to join the equestrian team, and I knew that it was going to take some adjusting but figured that riding once a week would be enough with the other activities in my schedule.  

Horses are still a large part of my life, but right now they’re not the biggest part - this is not by choice, but rather because other parts of my life have to take precedence right now.  This happened to many of my friends who rode horses before college.  We all miss it, but know that if we work hard now, we can eventually get back to riding as much as we want.  This can happen with a lot of different activities, and it’s just a fact that people’s identities change a lot once they get to college.  

Right now, I’ve been trying to find other things to do to fill up my schedule, because I’ve had a lot of free time that I didn’t have before.  I’m attempting to be more social and go out more (not easy for a person who’s used to going to bed at 9) and it’s been fun to get to do all the things I didn’t get to do in high school.  If you’re struggling with a change of routine and miss your “old life”, I suggest finding other things to get involved in, because this might be the only time in your life you can do that; you can always get back to doing the things you love most later in life.