closing thoughts

i love the olympics.

love them.

always have, always will.

summer. winter. doesn’t matter.

for 16 days, i live in an olympic bubble.

for 16 days, i watch every single sport they include. all of them.

for 16 days, i will learn details and factoids and rules and names and numbers and game-play strategies. i will pay attention to split times and bell laps and burned stones. i will rank and score and predict and cheer. and cry. a lot. the olympics always always make me cry... for winners, for losers, for triumphs of the human spirit and, quite often, for nothing more than the random parent or fan or spectator who’s tearing up in the stands because they’re overcome with joy or despair.

and i love it.

when we were younger, YB and i would actually tape the olympics. opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, our favourite events, profiles of our favourite athletes. we actually, and with great care, drew the olympic rings – in the correct colours, placed correctly – on the labels for each and every videocassette (and there were LOTS) we used. i’ve been to olympic fan events and met olympians and even collected pins for a while.

loving the olympics has been part of my life for almost my entire life.

and when each olympics inevitably draws to a close, i get all sentimental and teary. the closing ceremonies are a benchmark. they always make me think of olympics gone by, and where i was, and what my life was like, and how much the world has changed since the last time i watched a closing ceremony celebration.

but nothing drives that passage-of-time point home more than the portion of the ceremony where the head of the IOC makes his speech, offering his thoughts on the olympics that are ending and extending his invitation to “the youth of the world to gather four years from now” for the next games.

each and every time i hear that exact phrase, pavlovian tears well up in my eyes.

because, in that moment, i not only think about the past, but i think about where i’ll be, and what my life might be like, and how much the world might change by the time the next games roll around. it’s strange and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

and, like the olympics themselves, i find that moment incredibly moving.