Dear 12-year-old Jonas,
Twelve years old and there are going to be a lot of changes over the next six years. Dad is starting on a new adventure with the purchasing the hunting ranch up in Maine, having him working there roughly five to six days a week for the next three years. High school is starting to become more and more on your mind with only two more adolescent years left in middle school. You recently started riding with a few new trainers, aside from Lisa Robinson, as for reference: Joe Forrest, Patti Bailey, Janice Condlam, Sandy Ladd, in addition to Robbie Bailey, just to name a few. You are riding so many different horses; starting to get paid for doing it, while gaining valued knowledge. You get to start teaching lessons on a weekly basis, while riding, and being paid for it. Living in New Hampshire you get the hot, long summer days; coupling with the enormous amounts of outdoor activities to do, ranging from hiking, boating, swimming, concerts, and many more fun things.
You’ll spend endless hours trying to be the best in all aspects of your life. School is not going to be easy for you, what-so-ever. Eighth grade is a fun, but short, year. It flies by with all of the eighth grade festivities going on. Montreal will be some of the best forty-eight hours of that entire year. On that trip, you foster an adventurous friendship with Gabriellah, who you later are able to pull yourself out of the funk you had been having that year. You qualify for all of the boys events in track for the state meet. Running has become something you are really great at. You’ve been losing the drive for soccer over the last few years with the opportunity of running high school cross country taking its place. Through it all, you are starting to learn that you have to do the extra work in everything in order to succeed.
Your eight grade graduation is great, with your whole family there including grandparents. The ceremony is a little over the top for an eighth grade graduation, with a huge after-graduation ceremony. The party was an awesome event for you, being able to hang out with your friends and family, and eat great food. You can feel the build of excitement for high school plus summer ahead of you; relish in it, as this is one of the last points where you feel as if you have it all together. The summer going into freshman year is super fun hanging out with your friends almost every day, riding most days of the week almost all day. Your working and having the first bit of real money come to you for a job that you found all yourself; as a job before never paid you, only paid for something you owed from various sources. You’re going swimming all the time, just purely enjoying summer.
The beginning of your freshman year, you get onto the cross country team without hesitation. Training is super tough; running upwards of thirty-five to forty-five miles a week at the beginning of the season. You go home every day exhausted; endless amounts of that has to be completed before you have to get up at five the following morning. Although you get a whole week away for your birthday with the whole family going to the Dominican Republic, you still have work to do, plus training everyday. But is it wonderful, getting up early running with mom on the beach while it is still cool then going back to the gym to finish with your body workouts. Following a shower, a few hours of homework, with the rest of the day before you. The excursions give you a whole new perspective on life, and seeing poverty; people literally everywhere at all times trying to sell you almost anything. In this culture, it is normal for people to run up to a car with carts full of odds and ends for sale at a stop light. You could buy anything from a fully fresh roasted chicken, to shoes, and even a toothbrush just from one cartman's alone. Aside from the unique culture, there was immense beauty throughout the country.
You come back and qualify for the regional meet in your freshman year; rivaling the eldest senior on the team. Training with him teaches you how to pace yourself, which you were having trouble with finding.
You tend to run out for the first mile and keep up pace, losing your energy but seedling into a pace for the next two miles, before pushing for the last half mile. Running with him teaches you how to put out a strong front pace before settling into something a little slower, using hills and terrain to your advantage. Then pushing for the last mile, before you go all out the last half mile. With learning that new technique, incorporating it within practice, you are able to train harder and push yourself to go faster. Again it will be exhausting, and your knees start to have problems causing issues in your ankles; go do the physical therapy you have to so you do not suffer from this down the line. The state meet is huge with over three hundred and fifty runners in the division; taking off the line was like a stampede of hundreds of ramped up teenager boys battling towards screaming blurs of colors. For a freshman placing in the top forty, you did better than anyone at your own school, with only two freshmen overall in the forty ranking. Closing out my year having me struggling in school. You will be able to find a rhythm with school, but let’s be honest, it is never your strong suit.
Sophomore year was very low key as you the cross country season is very similar being with you placing in the top thirdy at the state meet. You really start to feel the pressure coming from all areas: family being especially from mom, your school, teammates, along with competitors. However, when I was sixteen, my family and I drove to Florida for thanksgiving. On our way down in Virginia, we stopped to look at a 2001 Range Rover for me, which we purchased. We then drove it to and from Florida where I learned to drive it in addition to taking my driving test in it. After only having it for a short while it started to burn through a quart of oil every other time I had to fill it up with gas, therefore every three to four days. The passenger door broke and didn’t open - making you have to go through the window in order to get through- plus the drivers door only opened from the outside, the trunk stopped opening in addition to all that. It went through a full set of four breaks every three months; but every time I drove that car it made me feel great about myself, and I loved that. It gave me so many great memories. You get your license which is great, even so quickly becomes a burden. You start working at TJ Maxx after practice between all of your weekly appointments in order to pay your way as needed. It is a lot for you to handle for you nevertheless, making it through.
Summer going into Junior year is pretty uneventful, with starting to work more you are not riding for fun as much - mostly for work. Plus you are working at TJ Maxx a lot in order to save to buy yourself a new car. Junior year cross country season is once again tough, the coach is not afraid to push us hard anymore. Knowing us as a team better and how to get the best out of all of us we each have more individualized plans for how to overcome the season. You're running upwards of fifty almost sixty miles a week, the knee is starting to really get to you. Alternation ice, heat, going to physical therapy, dry needling, chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, seeing a nutritionist are all a part in your daily life. Between everything you are really starting to feel the effects that running, and living an overlay activity lifestyle has taken its toll on my knees, ankles and hips. You make it through states just barely missing the top twenty-five; which would have qualified you for the Meet of Champions. Which would have entailed competing against the top twenty in your division for Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. That last race you push everything you have left in you crossing the finish line throwing up everywhere, legs killing you, and muddy from running in the rain causing there to be mass amounts of mud. Which I fell in at one point on course, scraping my whole leg and side, plus covering me in mud legs to face on my right side. All I could hear once crossing the finish line was, “ You should have pushed harder, and earlier to pass those last few and make it to the Meet of Champions” coming from my mother with disappointment, “I’m sure you could have done it”. That changes you right there seeing that you have put yourself through all of this, still not being enough.
In that moment you make a decision, that decision: you will always hold yourself only to your own high standards. You will redirect your focus on working, and school as running has destroyed your body, furthermore your morale. Being able to realize that I was only getting the attention I wanted due to the fact that I was letting her live vicariously through me for her own goals and aspirations within every sport I played. The following day you find two more side riding jobs to work before picking up a fourth job as a ski instructor that winter. You work on studying more, gaining honor roll your last two trimesters; a feat you never thought possible. Although you go through a lot, only you can control where you want your life to go; follow the path you chose not the path others. You will have to work hard, endlessly, to get where you want.
But everything will be worth it to you in the end; the pain is worth the reward.
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