The Two Week Emotional Roller Coaster

The Two Week Emotional Roller Coaster

                It is a good thing the Olympics happen only every four years.  I do not think I could take it if they happened more often than that.  Thank goodness that the winter and summer games are spaced out every two years.  It just about takes me that long to recover from one to the next. 

                Let me just give you a little background; I am Canadian.  And as a Canadian, I am fiercely proud of my country and its maple leaf.   And when the Olympics come around, particularly the Winter Games, I tend to go a little crazy.   I stay up way too late watching more TV than anyone should ever watch.  I watch things like curling, and no one in their right mind should ever watch that much curling.  I check the internet each morning to see if Canada has gotten any more medals while I slept (that darn time change).  And I become an emotional basket case.  I cry just about every day watching the Olympics.

                I knew it was going to come, like it does every Olympics, but this year it was even earlier than usual.  My husband jokes that the Olympics are just too much for me, and it’s true.  We turned on NBC to watch the opening ceremony.  We had our map of the world out so I could show my girls where Sochi was and all of the countries being represented.  The NBC opening Olympic music came through the speakers of the TV.  The opening music!  I could feel my heart skip a beat.  The excitement rose and I felt the need to take a big swallow.  Gulp.  And my eyes began to mist up.  The opening music?  Really, Randa?  The opening music?  Bob Costas hadn’t even taken the stage.  This was going to be a long two weeks!   And the tears have continued to fall. 

                Seeing any Canadian get a medal automatically chokes me up, but it is more than that.  It is about more than winning  gold or silver or  bronze.  People come from all over the world, from USA and Russia, to Tonga and Nepal, and for two weeks, the world seems different to me.  Somehow smaller and closer together.  We are all the same.  And the tears rise to the surface again.   

                Then when there is a selfless act, well that just puts me over the top.  This time a Canadian speed skater, Gilmore Junio, gave up his spot to skate in the 1000 m and let his friend Denny Morrison skate in his place.  Junio knew that Morrison had fallen in the Canadian trials and had finished behind him, even though Morrison was the better skater.  So Junio let his friend skate instead and Denny Morrison gets the silver.  That is the true Olympic spirit.  Or the cross country skier who won his race and waited 28 minutes until the last skier finished so he could shake his hand.  It’s just too much for me and the tears fall again.

                 Luckily for me, this only happens every  four years...