It is the sound of hushed breathing. It is the rhythmic silhouette of strides, the perfectly choreographed dance. It is the way that the summer sunlight creates small crystals in the hanging spider webs. There has always been a melody in the sound of hooves underneath me. I can hear it over the screeching sparks of steel on concrete, over the punctured humming of every disappointment, and over the cascading cadence of every triumph. I could write sales reports, fix pipes, and clean teeth without getting attached. But I could never feel a heartbeat against mine, and not fall in love.

            Everyone around me seems to be struggling to figure out what they want out of their life, except me. I want to live the rest of my life excited to wake up the next morning. I want to live it in the company of horses, the one thing that will always define my happiness. In applying to Delaware Valley College, I hope to achieve this goal. With academic and hands-on experience my career goal is to enter the equine world prepared and passionate.  

            Every little girl seems to love ponies, and I was no exception. I would sit at my grandma’s kitchen table, cutting fishing wire and old cardboard boxes. I would make horse stables out of garbage, and halters for my plastic horses out of string I found on the road. When most people were growing out of that phase, I was still trudging to the barn every week, in summer, and in bitter cold. And as each year went by, my adoration only grew.

            When I tell people I want to work with horses for a living, most of them scoff and say the same thing: there is no money in doing what you love; a hobby is not a career. For some time I let this deter me, thinking perhaps I could find a different, more lucrative career option. But there is no passion in that. There is no passion in accounting or computer science. You cannot love a textbook, or confide your deepest secrets to an

office cubical. When I think of my future in any other context there is no motivation or excitement or blissful joy.

            Horses have taught me things the rest of the world does not even know exists. They are a work of art, each hair a delicate brushstroke, each eye a gaping brown hurricane hidden underneath a wreath of lashes. No matter how ugly the rest of my life gets, they always stay beautiful. They are the one thing I have never feared, the one thing I love enough to breathe like air, and the one thing I want to dedicate my life to.

And this is a job that would change my life...