2012 Olympics Closing Rant

Tomorrow night, the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics will be airing. With the closing of every Olympics, I personally always get mixed feelings. The first feeling is of preemptive nostalgia. The Olympics always prompts more family time and patriotism that I rarely feel any other time of the year. The conflicting feeling is that feeling of wanting to move away from the television. When the Olympics airs, I become more anti-social than I already am. I think twice about going out to see friends, because for those two weeks history is being made and I just want to sit and watch. So as the end of the Olympics draw near, I feel ready to lose that guilt of abandoning my television and can walk outside the house without knowing that I'm missing something.

Sadly, the latter feeling never overrides the former. I always miss watching the Olympics more than I am grateful for the ability to have a social life.

(photo taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19021659)

The Olympics are incredibly inspiring to me. I enjoy world records being broken regardless of what country breaks them. Each feat is a feat for humankind and something everyone should take pride in.

I'm going to miss hearing the triumphant Olympic theme that signals time to find a cozy spot on the couch with my cup of tea as well as the frequent commercials that mean it's time for a bathroom break. 

At the same time I'm thankful that I got to watch a third gold medal match for Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings. After Beijing, I was sad to hear that would be the last of them, but on their return, I was just grateful to see more matches from this duo. I had hopes they would take gold, but was accepting that they might not. So imagine my delight when I was lucky enough to see them take gold once more. :)

I'm also incredibly grateful to watch Phelps for many years up to his retirement from swimming. I still have this memory of my little cousin when he was only about 8, maybe nine years ago. He was telling me how he saw Phelps at a swim meet, and in a crowd, he reached out like a fangirl and touched his arm. I'm going to miss those flapping arms.

Though I always feel attached to the veterans that I see return to the Olympics, I am always more than willing to find new favorites. This year, I was introduced to Missy Franklin, a young inspiration that I plan to see in many Olympics to come. 

I'm one of those people who enjoy summer Olympics much more than winter. But, that being said, I still thoroughly enjoy watching winter. Watching both summer and winter Olympics have been an unspoken tradition in my family for as long as I can remember, and I'm truly looking forward to 2014.

As much as it is a bad habit of mine to wallow in nostalgia when things come to an end, I'd prefer not to do so when there is still one more night of events to watch. 

So, until then, even if you're not an Olympian, keeping pushing those limits of human potential and see where we are in 2016. :)