Choices

Yesterday I thought I had the next two years of my life planned out pretty well.  Today, I'm not so sure about that.  Long story short, there was a problem with my student loan and because of that, I've decided to take the semester off and work.  I don't want my student loan to get too high so I'd be putting away the money and hopefully be able to go back to school next year without a student loan. 

This has also opened up other oppertunities for me.  I go to a very, very small University.  It is tiny and it was perfect for me right out of high school.  But I don't enjoy it anymore for a lot of reasons.  I think  I'm ready, and would enjoy, being at a bigger University now.  So one of my options, and the one I would prefer, is to go to the University here where I live.  I think I'm going to see if I can make an appointment with a counselor to see if I could transfer over.  Hopefully I can.

If that doesn't work, another option I have is the University of Saskatchewan.  My grandparents live very close to campus or I could live in residence.  I have two major concerns about this option, A) living that far away from home absolutly terrifies me.  And B) I finally got my horse near me and I don't want to leave her. 

For the first one, I can reason that I won't be completely alone as my grandparents will be there.  I'd miss home like crazy, and all of Alberta too as it's a place I never want to move away from, but it'd only be for two years.  And I'd be coming home for the summers. 

For the second one, which is probably the more major one, I honestly don't think I could leave my horses.  If there's one thing my mom resents about the horses it's that all of my major decisions revolve around them.  But I can't expect her to take care of three horses on her own, and there is no way I am sending Socks and Artemis up to my dad's.  I said this to my mom.  And, to my surprise, she agreed.

Her solution?  Bring them with me.  I thought I heard her wrong.  Seriously, she wants me to bring my horses to University with me?  People rarely do that!  But we talked about it some.  She realizes that I will not leave my horses.  I have owned Socks for going on 9 years and spent 8 of them two-three hours away from her.  I hated every second of it.  I hate having someone else be her primary caregiver, having someone else having to make decisions for her because I'm too far away.  I hate not being able to see her and if I went to U of S, I'd be six hours away from her.  I won't leave Artemis just as she's in the middle of her training.  I don't want her to be sitting out in pasture for the next two years doing nothing.

I figured I'd only be able to bring one of them.  It would be Socks, I can say that now and it would be horrible to leave Artemis behind, but I know I would bring Socks.  I love all my horses, but it's Socks...she's always going to be my number one.  My mom disagreed, she thinks if I'm going to bring one, I should bring both.  I'd have to have a job, of course, but I'd have one anyway.  I would have help paying the board, I do already and that wouldn't change.  I already found a boarding stable I like (I can't help it!  I had to look!) but my grandparents also know a lot of people with farms.  It would depend on if they knew someone willing to keep the horses there. 

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but the fact that I could probably bring my two girls with me makes U of S an option.  Yesterday I didn't have any decisions to make, now I have too many.

On an off note, I've already made one decision.  I am a Pyschology student and my goal is once I'm finished, I want to get into Equine-Assisted Therapy.  Ideally, I'd like to have my own place one day to open as a Therapy Centre.  I am very far away from that, but that doesn't mean I can't start helping now.  I've found two programs looking for volunteers and one of them looks very promising.  I'm going to send the application in and hopefully they get back to me.  I think it would be great and I could see if I really, truly do want to work in Equine-Assisted Therapy. 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit intimidated by all the choices opening up in front of me.  I like both Universities for different reasons and I both want to stay here in Alberta, which I truly do love, or move away from home and gain that experience.  Just overnight, all the plans I had for the next two years are out the door and I have so many new plans to make.