At this point, I should tell you...I'm a complete Olympics fanatic.
Between the two I skew slightly more towards the winter games (a brief youthful flirtation with figure skating and a surprising indifference to foot races can account), but, regardless of the season, when those rings start appearing I start having heart flutters and my dormant patriotism/love of sport spectatorship is awakened.
Seeing as I am not a real person, I have spent the past few days with BBC Sport dominating my computer's desktop. I wake up with swimming, have lunch with beach volleyball, tea with gymnastics and then come back from shifts at the theater to watch the finals of whatever was played that day until 2am.
Putting my finger on exactly why is tough. That AMERICA is competing along with the individual athletes means there is a sense of inclusion, even if I can't do a pull-up and my knowledge of a gym is but a faint memory. I really love watching sports. I have a huge amount of respect for the athletes, and what they make their bodies do, the amount of training, skill and strength they posses is just...unreal. Furthermore, I have a fondness for attractive gentlemen, and the USA swim team is slowly ruining me for all mortal men (I have been in superficial, objectifying lust with Ryan Lochte since Beijing; Michael Phelps is my imaginary boyfriend). It's a delicious concoction of country, competition and eye candy that I find myself completely unable to resist.
But it is a little bit more, as well. Last night I watched my IBF win his 19th medal and secure himself as the winningest (and greatest) Olympian of all time. After the yelling and cheering had subsided, Red and I immediately started in on a lengthy conversation of the "where were you" variety focused on the Beijing races, specifically that achingly close 4x100 relay. She was in Spain, at a bar. I was screaming profanities as I jumped up and down on my Grandmother's couch in Lake George. Watching a terrible YouTube recording of that race last night, I remembered the exhilaration and pride and just sheer joy from four years before and that sense of being part of history that stays with me every time it's mentioned in an article or an athlete profile or an "Olympic's greatest moments" network package. I saw it happen. In a way, I was there.
Every generation has "where were you" moments. They are usually tragedies. Where were you when this person was killed (JFK, RFK, MLK Jr.), where were you when the bomb went off (Oklahoma City, the first World Trade Center, 7/7), when did you here about the shooting (Columbine, VT, Aurora). "Where were you when the first plane hit" followed by the second plane, the first tower, the pentagon, the second tower, the field. But sometimes we are given communal moments that bind us in joy. The 2008 election meant so much to me, in part, because I felt that was my first man on the moon. That was the first moment I locked in my mind because it lifted me up and made me feel part of something bigger and better and brighter. Maybe it's sentimental, maybe it's naive, but watching Michael Phelps win that gold medal gave me the same feeling. And then again, last night. It doesn't happen every Olympics and it doesn't always happen in the same way, but that the potential is there is something so amazing and wonderful and hopeful in a time when those feelings sometimes seem so fragile.
So, yes. I love the Olympics.
