From the Heart
It’s been an exhausting two weeks. My attention has been on the Olympics.
It’s not just staying up late for just one more skate, one more jump or one more race. It’s finding myself, emotionally, in the midst of so many events with athletes daring to go where few have ever been or attempted to go. My emotions and my body need a nap.
I do my best to help them. Cheering. Holding my breath. Cringing. Clasping my hands over my heart. It wears on my nerves and my emotions.
I have no idea what exactly a salchow (yes, I looked up the spelling) is in skating but it takes my breath away. A lutz. Really? Whoever thought, “Let’s see if I can jump backward from the outside of a skate, turn in the air and land on the outside of the other skate?” Easy peasy. No way.
A skater goes into gold position and then gets beat by a gazillionth of a second. My heart hurts for them. So many years of practices and sacrifices only to get a silver medal.
Come on, it is SILVER, second best in the world. They have reached the pinnacle of their lifetime. It’s a tug of war in their mind and heart. I know they are thinking and feeling, “Yes, I’m here but I wanted to be the best of the best. I get it but I want to hug them and tell them that we are proud of them. To reach the thrill of competing in the Olympics is something few athletes will find themselves doing. Most will go home without a medal but look where they were competing. THE Olympics.
I walk across the ice in my boots with traction and I do a twirly and my landing is definitely not a 10. I fear falling and breaking something that at my age cannot be replaced. They have fallen time and time again and know they will fall again and possibly break something. Yet they persevere.
Two skaters during the couple’s skate are like free birds on the ice until their skates accidentally collide and they fall but must get up and continue to skate. You know they are feeling sick but they have to finish the skate with knowing they have failed to do what they have succeeded in doing time and time again. Only this time it really mattered.
A skater has a costume malfunction and she not only has to worry about her landing after a triple jump but she has to worry about not exposing the world to more than her ability to skate.
A snowboarder flies and flips, angling to left then right and then lands the tip of his board onto the edge of the snow and crashes. He had spent so many years training. So many perfect landings until the one that counted the most. And he did not stick the landing.
The speed skating where it looks like a NASCAR race on ice is mesmerizing. How do they keep up on who is where and not running into another skater?
I get confused when they talk sleds. Bobsled. Luge. Skeleton. A bobsled has both steering and brakes. The other two have neither.
The lingo of snowboarding is truly an entire language of its own. I just say, “Wow, he/she did really good, whatever they just did.”
I cannot imagine the pressure these athletes feel. They are representing their families and their country. Families that sacrificed so much. Some can come back in four years, others are one and done.
The camera zooms in on a mom of a downhill skier. She watches with her hands covering her mouth. Her eyes tell a story of their own. In the next few moments, her child races down the hill. At the bottom will be the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. So many hopes and dreams have led them to this moment. One moment in time to make history for the good or for the, well, not so good.
How these athletes figure out how to get their bodies to contort to the angles they do, at the speed they do and in conjunction with the partners they do it with, just amazes me.
I know it’s a lifestyle for these athletes. It’s their passion. Kudos to them and their parents. The emotions are raw and run the gamut of feelings. I feel a few of those feelings while curled up under the warm covers.
I just know I need to rest up for the Summer Olympics in two years. Whew! I need a long winter’s nap.