A Rather Contradictory Ginger

As I stepped out of my TARDIS, I saw a girl with unruly, long red hair. She was sitting on a bench, in a park, drawing a detailed portrait of a man. As I took a few steps closer, I noticed that the picture she was drawing, was a picture me. On her notebooks she had doodles and sketches of little cartoon aliens and spaceships. Papers spilling out in every which way, mostly drawings, but the occasional peice of homework would slip out between the rest. She had everything very put together, in the most disorganized way possible. The wind pulled her hair in multiple directions, but it seems she just agreed to let it do its' own thing. I walked over and sat down next to her, though she did not seem to notice, never losing focus on her drawing. She seemed very concentrated, but every so often she stopped and stared at her shoes, with the most absent minded stare. Almost as if she was in a completely different universe. She was pulled out of her apparent day dream when I said hello. Avoiding my eyes, she replied with a friendly hello, but in the most distant way. Her personality seemed to contradict itself quite a bit. I asked her for her name, and at that moment- she realized who I was. Her eyes got huge and her mouth dropped open slightly. Her cheeks turned red as she frantically stuffed away the drawing, which coincidentally was of the man sitting next to her. We began to chat, and slowly the shy and distant red head seemed to become significantly more vocal. She had a plethora of thoughts and opinions to share, but still avoided eye contact most of the time.

I invited her to travel through time and space with me, and she obviously said yes.

My trusty companion loved adventure, and danger, and the adrenaline rush, and being absolutely reckless. However at the same time she wanted the feeling of safety, she didn't like being vulnerable, and she didn't like the idea of dying. On the other hand, she was not at all scared of dying. She could quite possibly be one of the most contradictory people I have ever traveled with. She was incredibly disorganized, but had everything in the right order. She was shy, but strangely talkative once you got her going on something. Confident yet self conscious. Absolutely mental, but also relatively sane. She wanted nothing more than to see the whole world, but never wanted to get out of bed.

The Girl Who Lived

No one remembers when it started. I think I was born with it. For as long as I can remember, there was nothing I wanted more than a horse. Every Christmas, my request was the same, but the answer was always no. Every birthday, before I blew out my candles my mom would tell me, “don’t waste your wish on a horse, you can’t have one.” Of course I always would anyways.

Finally after 16 years worth of birthday wishes, I got a horse of my own. He was a 4-year-old Thoroughbred that raced at the local racetrack. No longer winning races as he once did, he was given to me as a gift. I changed his name to Zephyr, and got to retraining him and breaking his old racing habits. He had his fair share of rambunctious outbursts, and threw me on the ground several times. I didn’t mind though.

We quickly earned each other’s trust and worked as one. By the time the summer before my senior year rolled around, it was time to have my senior portraits taken. Because Zephyr had been such an influential part of my life, I wanted to take my pictures with him. Things were going swell, until he decided to throw a bit of an untimely tantrum. He spun around so he was facing me, and reared all the way up onto his hind legs. I looked up at this massive animal as he thrashed his front legs about. Determined to not let go of his reins, I stood my ground. I had never been fearful of horses, and especially not my own. I was in the process of scolding Zephyr; when his front hoof came down, square on my head. I hit the ground, and could feel my horse tugging on the reins, and backing up. Upon hitting the ground I immediately jumped up to calm him down, and make sure he didn't run off. Not realizing that I had blood streaming down the side of my face, I asked my mom what was wrong, as she started to press a paper towel to my bloodied head. I then asked her if I was bleeding, and if it had ruined my white shirt. After calling 911, it started to sink in what had just happened, although I wasn’t quite sure of the severity.

I had a four-inch laceration that went all the way down to my skull. I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance (exciting!) where they did a CT scan on my head and gave me thirteen stitches. Incredibly enough, I left the hospital that night with nothing more than 13 stitches, a gnarly looking head, and of course a bit of head trauma. On the way home from the hospital, I forced my mom to stop at the barn so I could check on Zephyr to make sure he was doing alright.

Had I been kicked just a little bit off to the side, I could’ve been severely injured or even killed. I realized that night: I have a tremendous amount of passion for horses, and even knowing how seriously I could’ve gotten injured, I still couldn’t stay away. My passion doesn’t end with horses, however. I have the ambition to get myself into an artistic field, and succeed. To go as high as my abilities will take me, and still work at going higher. I have the desire to do well in the things that I work at, and the amount of passion inside me drives me to do the things I love. To work hard with my horse, to do my best in school, to practice my art until I can no longer keep my eyes open. I have such an immense amount of passion, that nothing will be able to keep me down. When I am fervent about something, I will find a way to make it happen.