I have to admit, I don’t always listen when my husband sends me links and says, “You have to read this.” But when he sent me a Vice article on a trending hashtag about “horse girl energy,” I was intrigued. I thought the internet had somehow discovered the secret stores of limitless energy that enable us horse girls to do the things we do and was celebrating us for it.
Horse girl energy is the superpower that allows us to effectively work with opinionated steel-shod prey animals ten times our size. It’s the thing that fuels us while we’re horse showing in 90 degree weather, surviving only on coffee and granola bars and probably sleeping in our trucks. It’s how we can clean 8 stalls while hungover faster than most people can make a bed. It’s why we can’t stay awake for an entire movie, but riding a couple of horses before or after a whole day at work is the normal routine. I thought for sure the article would be a witty outsider’s take on what *I* believe horse girl energy means.
It was not.
To my dismay, it was about what the internet really thinks of us: giant dorks.
Sure, the internet is not totally wrong. I might not be the only one whose horse girl energy led to some embarrassing fashion choices in the seventh grade. According to the article, horse girl energy is “sincerely doing or enjoying stuff that most people think is corny or uncool.”
As I continued reading, the article sparked my “horse girl rage” and I rapid fire texted my unsuspecting husband what a load of bull$h!t this article was, what a travesty, how misrepresented all my fellow kick ass horse girls were, and how if that’s what the internet thinks of us, the internet is sorely mistaken. We’re outside braving the elements day in and day out. We’re doing all of the normal adulting crap that non-horse girls have to do AND we’re successfully caring for one (or maybe several) high-maintenance creature(s) on a daily basis. We’re working out so we stay fit enough to ride such creatures. And we’re constantly learning, gaining new knowledge and skills so we can train our beloved partners and work in harmony with them. What is so “uncool” about living a life with utter passion and devotion, do tell me, dear internet!
The article then touches upon another undeniable truth–“her Facebook profile photo is, of course, her posing with her horse. Perhaps she is brushing it. More likely, she is hugging it.” I rolled my eyes, thinking, orrrrr…. she is executing a perfectly precise dressage movement, or is in mid-air over a solid obstacle, or flying around a barrel at high speed, or a hundred other also cool things.
As my contempt for this author bubbled, I reached the final paragraph–perplexing and satisfying–which stated, “Imagine if you acknowledged loving anything that sincerely? Horse girls have none of this inhibition, and this is why they’re almost certainly loads happier than the rest of us.” The rage subsided. The author is right about one thing… and yet, why WOULDN’T you live life earnestly and openly loving something that gives you joy? I guess I’ll never know because I am an unabashedly dorky horse girl and don’t mind if the world and the internet knows it. Call me a uncool if you want, internet, but I’ll be out prancing through fields of buttercups, grinning like a fool, unable to hear you for the wind in my ears. I may be weird, but I sure am happy.
