If Wishes Were Horses

This afternoon I watched a movie called "Flicka." It is an adaptation of Mary O'Hara's novel, My Friend Flicka, in which 16 year old Katy McLaughlin dreams of fulfilling her family legacy by working on her father's ranch in Wyoming. Katy sets out to make a wild mustang she finds a riding horse. She names the horse Flicka, a Swedish word for pretty, young girl.

As I was watching the movie, I felt that there was something very familiar about the scenery and the way of the life that was being portrayed. I am by no means a country girl and I would venture that many of my family members would say that I am entirely a city-slicker (even though when my friends were complaining about the way the water tasted at a church we were singing at last week and I told them to hold their nose and suck it up (what a funny pun!), they called me a country girl.) Interestingly enough, my brother recently told me that my great-grandfather was one of the best bronco trainers in Western Canada so maybe it is in my blood.

There is a scene in the movie where Katy is talking to her brother about his plans to leave the ranch and go to university. She starts to cry because she said she knows that he will never return. That scene really struck me but I also realized that that is a very true comment. We live with our family for 18 or 20 years and then we suddenly move out. We cut off our everyday lives from the people who probably know us the best and who are able to forgive us for all the stupid things we do. Why is this the case? Is visiting your family at Christmas or at Thanksgiving really what we have come to? Why can we not stand our family members for more than a couple days when visiting them after we move out even though we've lived with these people for probably at least two decades?

*This is of course another camp picture. The simple way of life this picture encompasses is what I think we should all aspire to. Like some country song says, "If wishes were hoses I would ride, ride, ride."*

I've been struggling with the decision of what to do next year with my schooling. Should I stay here and live with my parents or move away and live on my own? I've gotten a taste of what it is like to live on my own from working at camp the past four years and I have to say, it's great. Maybe that's a false sense of independence though. For two of those four years I've had my meals made for me everyday and a schedule to live by but at the same time, I have been a "responsible parent" to a dozen kids a week at a time over the two months of the summer. (However, for the other two years, I made the meals.)

I don't know what to do yet and maybe I won't know until its made clear by what we call "a higher power" (aka. God) in my philosophy class. I know one thing for sure and that's that I am waiting anxiously.