I was an idiot at 14.
I mean, I’m sure a lot of teenagers were idiots. But I’m sure not every teenager is an idiot in the way where they trust a two ton animal won’t throw them off and step on them. Except the whole point was so the two ton animal does throw you off. The getting stepped on it what you actually want to avoid.
Surprise surprise, this stupidity was at a Christian summer camp. We all signed releases, and our parents did too, promising not to sue. It’s a good thing they had us do that, on their behalf, since that week a boy broke his arm real bad. He did the same thing I did. Except his hurt more. Except mine was more long term.
We rode bulls.
I’m not entirely sure why both this camp and all of our collective parents decided it was a good idea to send preteens and idiot teens to a camp where we could seriously maim ourselves in the process but oh well. They said it was okay and we all spent a week getting muddy and injured. Bull riding wasn’t all we did. We learned to wrestle steer too. Most of our stuff was on horseback though. That was the main appeal to all of us. Barrel racing, pole bending, keyhole nonsense, and team penning. Even some basics of trick riding which the guys were all frustratingly good at without even trying. How dare they.
Bull riding was not on my list to do. Not once. But the two girls I connected with that week decided that I had to. They decided that it was now on my list. I told them I’d rather drink hot sauce. So they dared me to and I did. It wasn’t that hot. And they still made me ride the bull.
The chute was red and rusty. Rather than the gates used in the fence lines, these had real thick and flat metal bars to hold the bull in and keep his horns or hooves from getting stuck. The spacing was just big enough for me to get one of my Ariats into so I could slither my way down onto the back of a six foot six inch tall animal. That’s a rough estimate. It was the biggest bull they had, that’s for sure. I had ridden draft horses before but this sucker was bigger and broader. The cowboy waddle was an exaggeration of riding horses for a long time, but it definitely wasn’t wide enough to get around this thing.
He wa white and covered in brown stains. Whether they were dirt or feces, I’ll never know. I grabbed the rope tied around his barrel, just behind his front legs. There was a leather piece on his back and the rope arched over it. That piece of leather was well worn and had obviously seen better days. The rope was fraying too. I couldn’t feel the rope through the thick gloves they gave me to stop my palms and fingers from getting burned.
“You ready yet?” I don’t remember the sound of the voice, but it came from the guy who was in charge of the bulls and steers.
Nope.
“What about now?”
Not even close.
My heart was full of helium and trying to fly up my esophagus and out through my mouth. Except my jaw was clenched so tight that it’d be never able to escape.
“Now?”
No. I pulled on the rope and tried to get my backwards hand more into my crotch. That’s where it should be and I wanted it as close to me as possible. I figured it’d help me stay on.
“C’mon, you should be ready.”
You’d think but nah. I’d rather just sit here on this big white bull that had horns that curved upwards. If the horse had been straight, they would’ve been longer than my arm.
“You’re ready.”
No I’m-
Well.
I’m screwed.
The chute opened and the bull jumped sideways. You know how people say that everything went into slow motion? Nope. I don’t remember the 6.8 seconds between the gate opening and my face on his left shoulder as I somersaulted over him.
Technically, I volunteered to ride a two thousand pound animal. But I never volunteered to have one of his cloven hooves catch my knee as my upper back collided with the ring’s sandy flooring. No one believes this part of the story and I’m not sure why. I had a centimeter thick set of parallel lines on my right knee for almost a decade after that. And that mark sure didn’t exist before that week.
Those two girls and I became the three musketeers of pain. They rode bulls that day too. We all hurt different parts of our body. One had her shoulder, another her hip, and I hurt the entirety up my upper back. We walked around with ice packs attached to us every day until the end of the week. The one girl who hurt her hip had a hard time getting on and off her horse the next couple of times. Me? I got nauseous. Really badly nauseous.
We were standing around on horseback the day after I was an idiot, and I got really dizzy. I had to hop off of the horse and put my head between my knees. The world was spinning and my throat felt full of mud and molasses. It was hard to breath. The rest of the week was the same. Every so often, I’d have to dismount in order to see and breath.
While nausea and a lack of sight didn’t follow me after that week, the back pain did. Thanks to the idiot that was 14 year old me, I have a slightly curved spine and can’t sit still for more than an hour and a half without excruciating pain. Thanks, past me. Bitch.
Kelly Lynn is a northern Maryland native and graduate of Susquehanna University. She grew up around horses and loves her 30-year-old mare, Terminator, very deeply. She plans on owning her own piece of land one day if only so she can buy her dream pet: a cow.