The Discomfort of Becoming

Have you ever felt like you zigged when you should have zagged?

Much of my early years with the cowboy was a balancing act between confidently working hard to prove myself, knowing when to humbly ask for help, and primarily just faking like I knew what the hell I was doing until I gathered a vague idea of the task at hand. As you can imagine, there were many instances in which I should have been more honest of my lack of experience, but I found that I rarely became aware of which instances those were until I was WELL in over my head.

The cowboy culture is a ‘prove it’ community of people who are tough as nails and have no problem putting people in situations to test their grit and back up their word. The work itself has a way of weeding out both the lying and the weak, so a person’s capability is most often tested by simply asking people to do a job and informing them not to fail.

A perfect example of this type of situation happened for me the first year Lucas had his PRCA card. He was hired to fight bulls for a man who was initially very intimidating from a bystander perspective. The first weekend Lucas worked for him, I watched from the stands as he passionately informed rough stock riders of their poor intellect, and basic lack of overall worth, when they took too much time to nod their head in the buckin’ chute. It didn’t take long for me to learn that nothing enraged this man more than when a person did something to slow down the flow of his rodeo. My primary job as a rodeo wife, that traveled with her bull fighter husband, was to essentially remain likeable, not appear useless and stay out of the way as much as possible. (Side Note: I would later discover that my ACTUAL job was to chauffeur my grown husband across the country, but that’s a variety of stories for another day.)

The first few weekends working for this particular contractor, I made great efforts to help where I could and just not come on too strong as the obnoxious, ditsy, young blonde that I was. Of course I introduced myself, but small talk didn’t seem to be this growly man’s cup of tea. In fact, the first time he ever spoke to me directly I was casually walking to the concession stand, with a rodeo burger and ketchup on my mind. He approached me with lingering anger in his eyes and a cherry red face. I could only assume something had just taken place to disrupt the flow of his rodeo. He took the time to look at me dead in the eyes to say;

“HEY! Are you a cowboy?!”

Without thinking, like some officer to her Sergeant Major, I straightened my posture and said “Yes sir. I am.” He proceeded to tell me “Good. Then you’re carrying the flag at all the rodeos for the rest of the year. You’re here already, and I hate when people drop the f***ing flag in the dirt.”

I’ll never forget the looks on Lucas’ face when I informed him of the interaction I had just had with the man who writes his checks. He transitioned from initial fear, to lite anger and ended up at smug. He smiled, shook his head and said “Well, you better figure out how to keep that flag out of the dirt.” He also proceeded to casually remind me of the time the month before when my horse hardly jumped at an opening gate and I ended up on the ground. Tough love was Lucas’ favorite, and he was not accustomed to getting me out of the messes I made for myself.

Let’s be real. I was not a cowboy. I was a cowboy’s wife. But man, I wanted to be, and I spent the rest of the summer, and 3 more summers after, carrying the flag at every one of this man’s rodeos. For the first few years I could have literally thrown up before riding into the arena; I was so nervous. Not only was I afraid of being the recipient of a passionate conversation, but I was also afraid of publicly humiliating myself in front of stands full of people.

The truth about real life is that we are hardly ever fully prepared to be the person we want to become. There will be times that we have to believe in ourselves before our experiences make us think we are fully ready. It’s necessary for our feelings to be uncomfortable as we stretch to the places our souls long to lead us to go. No one inherently knows when they should zig or zag. That process is learned by continually choosing a direction, responding to the sharp changes of every adventure and remembering that most zig zags look messy when the artist has yet to see the bigger picture it’s being weaved into.