Sometimes, joy is...

...breaking into a run just because you can.

I didn't do that so much before my back injury. Once I started to wonder if I would ever be able to walk more than about 40 feet again, if that, though? I came to see ever ability to move and do something for myself as a triumph.

I was certain that I would never be able to run again.

Little by little, in the patient way that he handled a troubled horse, my mentor coaxed me into trying a little more, and a little more. On the first day Solomon and I arrived at the ranch, I told him that I would never be able to get to the top of a hill by my own power again. A few hours later he suggested that we take some pictures of Solomon and I.

"Hey, see those flowers over there at the bottom of that hill?"

"Yep!"

"Those would be such a pretty backdrop for you and your horse. Why don't you two meet me over there?"

Gasping and wheezing and aching more than a little, I made my laborious way to those flowers. We took some pictures, and then he said,

"You know, these white flowers are really pretty. But you see those purple lupines a little ways further up the hill? How about we get some shots of you two in the middle of those? That'll look really nice."

And so we went up the hill, me gripping my horse's wither, leaning on him. He, carefully climbing, slowly, balancing himself so that I could use him as support, constantly checking in with me with soft, encouraging breaths on my shoulder. In some ways he has always acted towards me the way a dam does her foal. Especially if I am in pain. He always knows.

So that was the start of it. A new phase of my life. A new journey. And over the past year and a month, I've lost 47 pounds, I've climbed to the very top of that hill, and now, sometimes, I'll break into a run.

Just for the joy of it.