Watching TV (after spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on... technology these days.)

Let me just say, I really love the Olympics.

My earliest memory of the Olympics is of the summer games in 1996. We had just moved into the house on Enterprise, where my mom still lives, and I thought I was a gymnast.
At this time in my life, I thought I was an Indian who could sneak up on wolves in the wild and make arrows from rocks. Also, I was an expert teepee builder and Simba from The Lion King (as well as any other character from the Disney movie). Sometimes I could even walk on lava, but only for short periods of time.
I was not allowed to watch more than half an hour of TV every day, but during the Olympics I was glued to our old television set for hours. I would run around the living room and practice tumbling; more than anything, though, I was a balance beam star. Gold metal bound. When my name was announced, the crowds went wild, and when I stepped on my balance beam, everyone became quiet in anticipation of what trick I would perform. I was a natural. Which is why my dad found an old two by four to bring into the living room for me to practice on. I would watch the Olympians and prance on my wooden balance beam transforming myself into Shannon Miller and Lilia Podkopayeva. I would do flips and grand leaps, all of which landed in the splits, on the balance beam. I was a professional.
I was inspired.
During the winter Olympics, I always wanted to be a slalom skier. At one point I even made a workout schedule so I could make it to the 2012 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately I was not able to practice my skiing in the Midwest. And there is no slalom skiing in the 2012 Olympics… being that it will be the Summer Olympics and all.
I still secretly have dreams of grandeur. I think to myself “Whoa, that lady is thirty something! I can train for the next decade and make the Olympics!” but those are my private thoughts so don’t tell anyone. I might start running more in the next few weeks to train before I realize I don’t have the heart. But right now, I am in the moment. I am inspired.
So I CAN DO IT!
It is only the first day of the winter games and I am already both pumped and amazed. What has gotten me the most so far this year (besides Apolo Ohno gaining his sixth Olympic metal!!!) is the community among the athletes.
Yesterday Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger, died in a practice run. He is an individual from a country that most Americans could not find on a map unless you were talkin’ about that southern state. Don’t they grow cotton down in Georgia? No…
Although Nodar is an individual from a nation most of us no very little about, his death is being mourned. His death is being felt across the world. The world! One man, one athlete. How often does the world come together to mourn an individual?
There is a community that goes beyond borders and language. This community is a beautiful thing. And that is why this year, yet again, the Olympics have captured my heart from day one.

I am looking forward to the next two weeks.