Cowboys and Mustangs

Change of Scenery- Chayni

Well today's the day.

The day of spreading my wings and "cutting the cord", the day I move away from my family for the first time in my life. The day I officially move to college.

It's been a chaotic couple days packing and sorting through everything I'll need at the dorms and everything I need for riding and competing. I didn't originally plan on competing on any team for the university when I applied, but one of the "coaches" was at a mounted shooting competition this summer and introduced herself to me and the rest is in the books. We ended up talking our way through a pretty good scholarship deal and she sold me on the other benefits of being apart of the Ranch Horse Versatility Team.

Their arena facility is superior to any other western colleges and their stables are perfectly sound for anyone's horse, plus the coaches are extremely friendly and already made me feel welcomed when I visited about a month ago. I was exited to meet other people on the team and about the fact that I could bring a bigger piece of home with me, Willie.

I know whenever I get homesick I can just go down to the stables and spend some time with Willie, a horse both my parents helped me adopt and start from the ground up. I am extremely grateful to be able to have him by my side as I take on my new adventure.

Before getting into my pickup, my eyes settle on the house. Although I only spent just little over a year here, it will feel like home more than any other place. In this short time here, many many good memories have been created here. Seeing my parents flourish here, seeing Mikey genuinely happy, being closer to my grandmother, Jesse and I's first kiss in the pasture, Blake continuously slipping on cow poop, and the sounds of the animals and nature every morning. Yep, I was definitely meant to be here.

But now it's time to be on my own and figure out how I can help myself live my life according to its God-given purpose.

With one last look of the property, I join Jesse in my pickup, "Ready?" He asks me.

"As I'll ever be. Are you sure you don't want to-"

"Babe," he chuckles with his handsome smile, "we're both settled on our decisions. Neither one of us is going to make the other change their mind." This makes me pout, "As much as I want you to come live with me, I know you want to further your education and experience college. And you want me to experience that too, but I want to be hands on right away. We're both doing what we need to do in order to accomplish our dreams together."

I grunt, "I hate the way you're good with words."

"No, you just hate that I'm right." He says then surprises me when he leans over and kisses me on the cheek as I'm backing up the trailer.

"You better just hope I don't forget about you.." I tease him as I follow my dad's pickup down the road.

"Oh trust me you won't."

"How do you know that?" I perk my eyebrow.

I see a sly smirk grow on his face as he reaches in the crowded back for something, "Because I got you this."

He then pulls out a circular tube that looks like it contains some type of poster. He easily opens the top then indeed pulls out a poster and I'm very curious to see what is is based on the look on his face and our conversation. He then unravels the poster and once my eyes full take in the image, my jaw drops followed by an eruption of laughter, "What do you think? Perfect right?"

It was a poster of Jesse. Not just any picture of Jesse. But a picture of Jesse happily smiling and proudly pointing to his tee shirt that had my face on it. It clearly wasn't made to be taken serious since it was so ridiculous, mom's gonna love this one.