There is one certainty in this life — time will pass. Sometimes like molasses (often when we are in less than pleasant situations, reclined in the dentist’s chair, or when waiting on an important phone call — the seconds slug along) but more often than not it seems that time is a train car rushing past, leaving us winded and wondering how that thing back there is now here, and now gone.

All this to say, Rae grew up in a blink.

There are those who remember her birth with the clarity of a recent memory, cutting through four years worth of time to recall the exact moments she was shepherded into this world as a dark, long-limbed creature, fantastical in her proportions as all new foals are.
And so to see her now, so well-formed and adult, it is hard to parse that she was ever that gangly little thing, who did not have a rough start herself, but did have her own trials and tribulations as a youngster. Rae was the most accident prone of her two compatriots, and ended up with various allergies and sensitivities that made her an easy target for the moniker “poor little Rae.”

But what feels like a scene from a movie where the bookish, unassuming character metamorphoses into a stunning model-esque version of herself, such was the transformation Rae underwent with the same perceived immediacy as said character removing her glasses and shaking out her ponytail (and why is their hair never tangled, by the way). One moment, Rae was an awkward baby, the least aesthetic of her kin, and the next she was a doe-eyed adult, sleek and beautiful, kissed by youth rather than kicked by it.

Her disposition is, generally speaking, as soft as the fuzz that is beginning to coat her, now that winter is fast approaching. She can have an opinion, as is perceived standard of her nature as mare, but remains more on the sweet side of the sour patch kid — sour for a blink, then full-sugar. She is the perfect horse to pamper, as she shines up like a new penny (or really, more like an oil slick with her sleek black coat). In most every aspect, Rae is pleasant to deal with — her susceptibility to itchiness means that she is a rewarding girl to scratch most of the time, but even if that was not the case, she would be a wonder to pet, soft and sweet.

Rae under saddle is working on life. Like a teenager, she wants to do what she wants to do, when she wants to do it. Making something as strenuous as moving out seem like a good idea to Rae holds about the same interest as taking out the garbage most days. The end goal will be to make life, as in upward movement, as exciting as attending an ice cream social — or whatever teenagers are doing these days.

Now, all grown up, Rae is ready for the next step of her life, one featuring a forever home with someone who can watch her grow through the next chapters of her life.