So this is a little old and out of date, but it is something that I keep wanting to write about and meant to do way back when when the Olympic trials were going on last Spring (or whenever). Does this ever happen to you? You are watching a race or competition of sorts and as the race draws to an end, you find yourself cheering, maybe even clapping with tears streaming down your cheeks. “What is wrong with me?,” you might say to yourself. I don’t even know these people, for the love of God. I have never even heard of this athlete but I all of a sudden feel like their biggest fan and cheerleader.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the summer Olympics this year, more so than usual. Every evening, LoAnn and I would land on the couch; I would knit; she would sit curled up on the other end of the couch. And as described earlier, the cheering would come out of us, clapping and, inevitably the crying (well, at least for me). I really did try to hate that Michael Phelps, but he simply is a god. My jaw would drop, I would cheer along with the crowd, “USA, USA, USA” and tears would well up watching him kick ass again and again and again.
So these are my thoughts: I cry watching the Olympics because it taps into a place of deep satisfaction I have had in my own life when I have worked my ass off and succeeded. Sheer satisfaction. I also played sports in high school and some in college and love that feeling of pressing your body to do something your mind didn’t think possible. I remember working really hard on a school project for Mr. A’s economics class in high school. He handed out very few A’s in this course. My dear chum, Hilary and I, worked our asses off and gave it all we had and guess who got some of the few A’s. Woot! I had never felt so proud of myself. Planning a wedding might even be in this category. But the experience that trumps them all is giving birth. Seriously. Especially when you have been pushing for five f*%@ing hours and that baby finally wiggles out like a slippery fish and they land her on your chest. I had such a surge of emotions burst up and out of me that I had never experienced before, even with these previous experiences of success. I did it! I pushed a baby out of my body. So just like Michael Phelps is a god, I deduce that I must be a goddess for working my ass off pushing that little Audrey Anne out. My goodness, I felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, power, and shall we say, relief. And I just cried, laughed and cheered.