To Olympic Dreams That Never Die

It’s that time again, the Winter Olympics. Twice a decade, we set aside our differences and gather as nations, watching in awe as the best of us stretch the boundaries of speed, grace, the human spirit and imagination.

As a kid, I loved watching the Winter Olympics. In the spirit of the games, my brother and sisters and I would vie for the most comfortable seats on the living room couch, elbowing each other in a rush for the center of the sectional to stretch our feet up on the ottoman with a front and center view of the TV.

For the next three hours, we would sit riveted as mere mortals, teenagers not much older than ourselves, blasted down snowy mountain sides or ice glazed tracks at speeds we couldn’t imagine our father getting down the highway in his suburban. We would shout and cheer when the US goalie made a game winning save and suck in our breath as a couple’s skater failed to land a triple lutz. It is among the few evenings I remember being allowed to stay up until the eleven o’clock news and only then would my father shoo us off to bed.

At night, I dreamed about the skills I would need to acquire and I’d do the requisite math to imagine how old I’d be when the next Olympics would come around and I could make a go for the gold. Like an actress planning her acceptance speech at the Oscars, I would stand in front of my closet mirror with my skis held up on my shoulder or a set of ice stakes hanging loosely around my neck and play out my interview with Bob Costas.

In the morning, my sister and I would practice for whatever sport we’d seen the night before. We’d point our selves straight down all 250 vertical feet of our local ski area Lost Valley or we’d lie flat in our sleds down Bran’s hill. She broke her arm not once, but twice, at what passed for our hometown skating rink, a flooded soccer field at the end of the block. I think we were practicing a lift of some kind and became hopelessly tangled in one another.

Despite our failed attempts, I never stopped believing we’d make it to the Olympics.

We are grown now, but this Olympics has not really been all that different, except of course we are in separate living rooms scattered across the US with our own children curled in our laps or on our couches.

The spectacle is as spectacular, if not more so and the US is winning a hefty collection of medals. Yet, as I watch the stats for each athlete come up on the screen -- name, country, height, weight, age -- it shocks me to realize that I am older now than most of the athletes I am watching.

Call it force of habit, but I spend the next couple of hours wondering still if I can train myself to do what I see on the screen. I watch a bump run, and think sure, I’ve got good knees. But when the medal stand fills up with skiers who can do a back layout, I immediately shift my sites to the next sport. Then, an ice skater lands a quad and I remember that I never really made it that high off the ice. I can feel it suddenly, my chances of gold growing slim.

Yet, when it’s late, and after I’ve settled our daughter into sleep, as I am brushing my teeth, I can’t help but smile in the mirror, stand back and imagine Costas sitting across his desk, asking me how as wife, professional, and mother I could fit it in to train.

It is a hard thing to realize or admit that certain dreams in life won’t come to fruition. It is also no fun to do so.

So, I squat down stubbornly and make a pose like a downhiller. Even though my knees crack when I stand up, I’ll still pretend that all it will take is a little practice. Or maybe, I’ll try cross-country skiing. That’s something I can train for with our daughter in a backpack.