My Olympic Experience: Remembering, Reminiscing, Reaching

Flaming Rings
(Olympic Rings © International Olympic Committee)

It’s about time.  In light of the London Summer Olympic Games, I just had to do this.  It’s been on my mind unlike anything else these past few weeks.  I tried to hide it at first – there’s a lot of pressure to write as an Olympian, to write as a “known” person (though I hardly consider myself “known” by any means) – but I’ve decided to succumb and write a bit about my Olympic experience.  

Ripple Effect

Effects of a Raindrop

**Warning: This post is not going to be about the science of capillary waves, skipping rocks, or any other such water-related things.  Rather, it will hopefully be a metaphor for how I am perceiving life at this moment.**

Have you ever observed raindrops on a pond?  Or even what happens when a rock is thrown into a lake?  The clean, smooth, perfect surface of the water is suddenly pierced, and from that puncture a ringlet of ripples emanate around it.

I find life to be much the same.  We are born, we have this entirely clean slate, and then suddenly our clean slate is pierced by something.  Anything.  Whether it be a person,  an event, a decision.  Our life is suddenly influenced.  And from this change in our life, we see many resulting developments.  Some we never predicted could happen, some we hoped and wished would occur.  But no matter what, our lives seem to be a continuing ripple.  

Serenity

Lamplight Reflected

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This quote is one that I’d forgotten about until a close friend reminded me of it just yesterday.  Which is slightly ridiculous to me, because the journal in which I do all of my personal writing and jotting-down-of-thoughts has this prayer written on the back of it!  Apparently I don’t read what’s in front of me sometimes.

This prayer, widely known as the Serenity Prayer, is one that is speaking to me very loudly right now.  I mean, it’s practically screaming at me:  

Tears

So You Had a Bad Day
(That’s me, by the way)

Tears.  That warm salty liquid that runs out of your eyes when you’re both at your happiest and your most melancholic.

Most people try to avoid them at all costs, especially those arising from emotional trauma.  But I want to tell you something: Let them out!

A good cry is so necessary sometimes.  There are days when I am collapsed on my bed, overcome with the decisions that must be made, the drama around me, the unfairness of life (though usually, in retrospect, my problems are not that bad in the grand scheme of things).  And I become overwhelmed.  Tears come to my eyes, and while at first I try to hold them in, invariably they end up streaming down my face.  After a couple minutes (or – let’s face it – many minutes) of crying, I always feel better, relieved, liberated, calmed.  Every single time.

These past few days have been rough for me.  I’ve been holding in my tears because, let’s face, it, who wants to be seen crying?  It shows weakness, vulnerability, and just really isn’t that attractive.  I mean, your face contorts into strange shapes that you didn’t even think were possible, and then suddenly it’s wet!  And for me, it’s streaked black!  (All mascara-wearing ladies, if you don’t want the black-lines-down-your-face look, try my personal favorite: Maybelline waterproof mascara.  It never runs for me.  Except in this picture, when I was wearing my new organic Physician’s Formula mascara.  Someone let me know when they make organic waterproof makeup please!  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes!  The unattractiveness of crying…)   When you cry, other people look at you with pity, wanting to comfort but not wanting to intrude.  You feel awful both inside and out.  For me, right now, I feel like I couldn’t handle that… I’ve been trying to make important decisions in my life, so surely tears would affect my mental state.  But, alas, it is not so!