"... Tell Me Where We Go From Here ..."

I'm finally going to update ya'll on my trip to Nampa =D
... surprisingly, I don't have as many stories as I would have imagined I would. I figured I'd come home and be all flustered and ecstatic and not be able to shut up about the whole overwhelming experience.
In reality, going to Nationals wasn't the spectacle I imagined it to be. Not that I'm disappointed! Not in the least! It's just that, when you're six years old, 'Nationals' sounds like such a big, untouchable realm. For me, as a sixteen year old, to go and live that dream, to finally reach that goal ... it's slightly overwhelming.
Maybe the reason I don't have more stories to share is because I'm still in a state of denial. I, little ol' me, couldn't have possibly entered the pen and competed against the best horse and rider pairs in the nation.
Oh, but I did.
I'm still not sure it's settled in.
But there are a few memories I will forever hold dear; some that will remind me just how real this whole experience was ...

I'll always remember flipping through my an edition of Modern Arabian Horse magazine, the first copy I'd received as a newly registered member of AHA, and seeing a lovely green, full-page ad for the '6th Annual Arabian & Half-Arabian Sport Horse Nationals', with "Raise your own bar ..." written in elegant font at the top of the page. I won't forget how much just seeing that ad gave me goosebumps.
I won't forget driving four hours in the dead of night to Pendleton, Oregon; that in-car iPod hook-up was a lifesaver. (And for the record; that mentioned hook-up charged my iPod while it played my music. Therefore, my iPod remained alive and kickin' all week long. Just letting those concerned know ;p)
I won't forget walking into the hunter/jumper stadium arena and thinking of how much it reminded me of a miniature Rose Garden. And how my trainer had told me that "it was just an arena", nothing to be nervous about, before patting me on the back and telling me, "you're gonna love it!"
I won't forget going into my first class with my boy; both he and my first Nationals class. I won't forget coming out of the class in tears, asking "What did I do wrong?" And my trainer taking me out to the gorgeous dressage arenas in the park to school and let me get all my jitters out.
I won't forget the grin on my trainer's face when he took Reserve National Champion with his mare, our barn's big win of the week - and an award he'd been waiting for since he was eight years old.
I won't forget walking through the barns during the barn party on Thursday night, after a second fruitless - but not as catastrophic - ride; I won't forget the way I got all emotional when I heard the local entertainment play a folk-ish version of Green Day's Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) on an acoustic guitar and keyboard; the way the lyrics meant so much to me.
I won't forget the desperate way I asked my trainer why Bob's name was on the score sheet for my show hack class; how we all jumped up and down, hugging and laughing and congratulating when I finally realized that I had made a judge's card; that if it had been up to just that one judge, rather than two, I would have placed fifth out of fourteen. I won't forget how that one seemingly insignificant piece of paper - my horse's name at the bottom, confirming only that I hadn't placed in the class - had meant the world to me. How I held onto it, as if my life depended on it, all night long.
I won't forget my mom taking pictures of me and the rest of the horses in the barn out in the gorgeous park; how in that moment, without a title to my name, I felt like Bob and I were the luckiest pair in the world.
I won't forget packing up on Sunday morning, wondering ... where do I go from here?

I know where I go from here.
I've got another local show the weekend after next.
And my trainer has already gotten talking about Canadian Nationals next year.

My experience isn't over.
It's only just begun.