I Should’ve Been a Cowboy
April 7th, 2025
Writer: Sage Lowe
Editor: Hana Pitchon
I’m not sure if it’s ironic or it's telling that the late, great Toby Keith, a 31-year-old country singer from Oklahoma, created the song that I, a 19-year-old college girl, resonate with the most. Should've Been a Cowboy might have topped the charts in 1993, but it's still platinum to me in 2025.
Despite wanting to be a lawyer, sometimes I think I’d be better suited for the career of a cowboy. Cowboys experience a simpler life of open space, a herd of cattle, and nights under a sky full of stars, no light pollution in sight. Realistically, I know that's not in the cards for me. For one, I’m not the best horsewoman, and second, I am excited and passionate about studying and practicing law.
Sometimes, though, it's comforting to fantasize about that sweet life of rodeos and legendary western sunsets. After all, I grew up in rural Wyoming, where that existence is the reality for many of my former classmates and friends. I know it’s not an easy life, and being a cowboy is actually challenging. It’s not the perceived difficulty that is the object of my dreams, but rather the fact that it’s the complete opposite of my current path that makes being a cowboy so appealing to me.
The brief escape from my reality that fantasy offers, the minute when I think I could drop out of Michigan and go back to work on the local dude ranch or even transfer to the University of Wyoming (aka the Cowboys), where the Cowboy lifestyle is embodied in a University and I know almost everyone, helps keep me going on my current, completely polar, track.
A mountainless horizon is something I’m unfamiliar with; I’ve never lived close to professional sports teams or been a 30-minute drive from a concert by my top artist before. The accessibility is something novel to me, but is normal to classmates here. When my friends from the University of Wyoming come to visit, they’re shocked by the number of people, the culture, the options when picking where to eat, the bar scene, and actual frat parties; all of it is so different from what they have in Wyoming.
They love to visit me and get a glimpse of the Michigan experience—yet I love to visit them and return to the nostalgia of knowing everyone in the stadium where the university football team plays and where my high school has won state for the past five years. The grass, or pasture, is always greener.
I chose this lifestyle, this future, because it was so different from what I knew. It’s more complicated, there's more to learn and to adjust to here than in Wyoming. I’ve met so many new people and had so many new experiences, but sometimes I retreat to the comforting 3-minute and 28-second song that encapsulates what could’ve been, maybe even, what should’ve been. The simpler thought of solace Toby Keith and I share is immortalized with a banjo and a couple of beers.
