Embracing My Inner Dinosaur

I love the movie Step Brothers. I feel there are so many life lessons to be learned from this fantastic movie. How not to make bunk beds, how to make fancy sauce, tips for job interviews and, most importantly, how to embrace your inner dinosaur. For those of you poor folk who haven't seen the movie, I'll explain. There is a pivotal moment when the two heros of the movie have moved away from a life of childish joy and now must work at soul sucking jobs. An emergency crops up that only they, and their youthful passions, can handle. It is at this point that the two main characters get some of the best advice ever given. The father of John C. Reilly's character tells the boys to never forget their dinosaur and delivers the message wrapped in a story of how he forgot his dinosaur. Here, watch it and try not to tear up:

As much as I love this movie and value it's lessons, I realized recently that I had let the unthinkable happen. I had forgotten my inner dinosaur! I made this shocking discovery when we were going through some family drama. Stress was high and I needed to think of something to do, that didn't involve drinking vasts amounts of wine, to ease my anxiety. Possibilities went through my mind and were quickly discarded. I didn't want to take any more university classes, my husband wouldn't agree to me teaching in another country for a year, and the idea of scrapbooking scares the hell out of me. Scrapbooking is just weird. There. I said it. I know that scrapbookers might become enraged and dedicate whole scrapbooks to how mean I am. I don't care...put your pictures in a photo album and skip the stickers and captions. Look at this picture! I just puked in my mouth a bit.

Then it hit me...I'd start taking horseback riding lessons again. I had taken lessons, for a brief period, when I was a young teenager. I had fallen in love with it immediately. Not just being on the horse, but everything about horses. I loved mucking out stalls, grooming horses and feeding and watering them. The smell of a horse barn is, honestly, better than some of the best perfumes I've ever purchased. To me, it smells like a mixture of comfort, danger, possibility and endless glee. I asked my ever supportive husband if he minded and he said 'go ahead'. Luckily he had absolutely no clue how much this sport costs. Thank God! I searched around for a place and lucked out on Misty River Ranch . These endlessly patient people agreed to take a very out of shape and slightly (I say slightly because it makes me feel better...I think I was getting past slightly) pudgy new student.

I headed down for my first lesson and they got me on a beautiful, but slightly reluctant, school horse named Phil. Some older ladies who ride there like to call him the 'thigh master' because you must constantly squeeze to get him to go. This was fine with me. I should have a thigh master permenantly glued to my thighs so this was all good. Once I was on top of old Phil, it only took seconds for all those teenage girl feelings to come flying back. There it was....my inner dinosaur! It had been waiting for me for years! Things I thought I forgot came back to me and I felt such a sense of power and accomplishment.

As a side note, men think women ride horses so we can experience having something as powerful as what they have between our legs. This is ridiculous when you consider what that whole area on a woman can do. We're used to having power south of the equator.

As soon as the lesson was done, I was off to the local equestrian supply store and bought boots, breeches, and some really cute horsey socks. I think the cost started to hit my husband there but there was no way he could say no. In addition to a pretty constant giggle, I was glowing.

It was pretty crazy how quickly so many other aspects of my life started to change. Up until this point I had just felt exhausted and no longer really knew what my role in life was. My kids are getting older and they have their own lives. While they may need me emotionally, I'm not a part of their daily life like I used to be. So I was just sort of sitting around waiting for retirement. My retirement plan was pretty simple. Sit at the lake and read and write. That had sounded swell until I'd found my dinosaur.

I'm exercising like I haven't done since my 30's, my weight is dropping (probably because I'm not sitting around watching life go by), have said bye to the local wine store and am filled with excitement for what life has to bring next. I think this is a problem that all parents face at some point. We enjoyed our youth, met somebody we loved, had some kids, worked, stopped sleeping, forgot what we liked to do, worried about our kids, and stopped thinking of ourselves as individuals with needs. So, every individual needs to make their own decision. Will you treat life as a spectator sport or will you dive in and embrace your inner dinosaur?