17/10/2020
When I was in high school I had a large group of girlfriends 👯♀️ that I would sit with.
One day, I went and got my sandwich 🥪 and headed to the courtyard to sit down.
All of the girls were sitting in a circle ⭕️ and nobody moved to let me join.
So I sat down behind one of the girls 😔and began to eat my lunch.
I was very confused. 🤯
The leader of the group soon came over to me and said🗣 ‘Ummm Alex, we need to talk’
And I remember looking up at her👁👁 as she stood over me.
‘We are ‘us’ and you are ‘you’’🧠
All of the other girls watched on.
‘And you’re not really pretty enough to sit with us, ok’
👀
Without saying anything, I got up off the ground and wrapped up my sandwich 👣before walking by myself to the back oval where nobody could see me. 🚶🏼♀️
And I cried.
I feel as though many parts of the horse world 🌎 can make people feel like this too.
And I feel it so deeply when, literally DAILY, I am sent messages 📥or told in person about how someone at an event laughed at someone else who rode on the left lead around a right circle.
Or how at a clinic nobody sat with the person who ate different food 🥘 to them.
Or how ‘constructive advice’ came out at pony club like this - ‘you know she’s probably not good enough for that horse’. 🥁
Or how someone has trained for years for a competition that they’ll never go to 🔥because they are afraid of being judged by their weight.
I feel it. On a soul level, I feel it. ✨
After my ordeal that day (one that happened over a decade over ago ⏳and yet I still hold onto it), a girl from the group came out and sat with me. 💡
‘I don’t want to be friends with girls who make people feel like that’ she said to me. 🧘🏽♂️🧘🏼
And to this very day, she is one of the kindest, wisest friends I have. 🏅
I urge everyone to be like her.
To see the person who clearly knows nobody at a clinic 🌾and simply go over and ask ‘where abouts have you travelled from?’🌞
Or to see the rider learning in public 🌻and go over after and say ‘your horse is super slick looking! What are you feeding him?!’🌱
Be the person who sees a rider at pony club who is riding their 12hh pony with 6ft youth legs (so jealous, I am!!) 🍂and remark on how if you had that pony you’d never give him up either! 🍃
Be the one that sprinkles a little magic ⚡️wherever you go.
Because just like I remember the girl who made me question my worth 🥀that day, I also remember the girl who followed me out to the oval to remind me that she was wrong🌹
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