So since I've got a Cricut now (yay for the presents I buy myself for Christmas), I've been making designs for sweatshirts. One of my favorite so far it a picture of a loping POA with the phrase under it #thatgraything. Today was a casual day at work, so I threw it on hoping that one of my students would ask me about it.
It literally took about 15 minutes before a student asked me about it. He was like "what's that hashtag mean?" In a delighted voice to get all the students' attentions I said "I'm glad you asked!"
You see, it was back in September of 2020. I had just bought a pony that was just "started" or "barely broke" as they say. I had not even had her a whole week when I decided to take her to a horse show and see how she would react. I took her in the warm up pen which is basically chaos. If you have never seen the "warm up pen" you will not understand how terrifying it can be. Picture around 30-40 horses and riders going every which direction, going every speed, playing dangerous games of chicken, around people lunging their bucking/snorting horses on lunge lines in the middle with random horses next to you losing it at times. Poor Elsie had her baby brain mind blown and was just holding it together when a well known trainer riding by pushed her big horse's hip over towards us to lope off. Elsie took that as an act of aggression from the big horse and kicked out to defend herself. She got firmly reprimanded by me and I yelled out an apology to the trainer who rode off.
Said trainer then rode around the pen and loudly warned her friends/clients to watch out for "that gray thing". She happened to say it to Sophie also, of course not realizing that Sophie was my daughter. Being the good daughter that Sophie is, she felt the need to rise to my defense, explaining that I was on a very green 2 year old that was on her first time out. The trainer smarted back that then I should be in the middle. To which Sophie pointed to the 3 different people lunging their horses in the middle and asked "where". Then she went on to say that I was nervous enough and had only had the pony a week. As the trainer was yelling back at her and I heard them across the arena, I told her to let it go, it was fine. I was at fault, even if the trainer's response was a little uncalled for.
We joked the rest of the weekend, as Elsie did amazing, that she was just "that gray thing" and that is when I decided that would be her hashtag moving forward. (I do stink at remembering to put it on all my posts about her though.)
Fast forward to less than a year later when #thatgraything won her first Congress title. We were highpoint in our division that weekend and we were reserve high point overall for our division nationally in 2021. That gray thing has definitely proven herself to be a champion. And the life lesson that #thatgraything represents to me now? People are going to make fun of you when you start a new journey. It's going to be hard and it is going to be embarrassing. Not everyone is going to be in your corner, cheering you on. Don't let them get you down. Use those voices to inspire you to do everything in your power to prove them wrong. That's what #thatgraything means to all of us in my family. Maybe it can inspire you as well!
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