Pandemic, pandemic, pandemic...
My motivation to sit and write disappeared, along with many, many other things over the past 6 months. For me, I think the pandemic has proven the law of inertia (Newton's First Law). An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by another force. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by another force. With the pandemic, I have a lot more free time. I was going to write more. I was going to write a book. (Okay, maybe not.) I was going to organize the whole house, learn a new skill, actually take care of the yard. I didn't have swim meets or Cub Scouts or basketball games. The world was open. But I was at rest. I tended to stay at rest.
Of course, Tokyo 2020 was also postponed. The one thing that gets me to sit and write was suspended for a year. And we still don't know if it will really happen. The Olympic games are supposed to begin on July 23, 2021. That is 170 days from now. This morning on the news I learned that the Olympic organizers have created a "playbook" to make the games happen. The "playbook" includes details of how they will keep things safe. Things like testing athletes every 4 days, everyone wears a mask all the time (not quite, but a lot), and a bunch of other things I am too inertiaed out to research for you. See, I can't even move to a different tab to do the research I should properly be doing for you. Or to even see if inertiaed is a word (no need to check for me, I am certain it is not.)
The news is generally good for the Olympics, even though 80% of Japanese polled want the games either cancelled or postponed again. I want the Olympics to happen. As a swimming fan, I want to see what Regan Smith, Claire Curzan and Shaine Casas will do in what is likely (and hopefully) their first Olympics. I also want to see if the old guys can make it one more time (I am rooting for you Nathan Adrian.) I want to see if Caeleb Dressel can make us forget, perhaps for even a moment, the name, Michael Phelps. I want to see what Katie Ledecky will do in her third of perhaps 5 Olympics. I want to see the greatest gymnast ever on the Olympic stage again. I want to see Noah Lyles. The Wife really wants to see Noah Lyles. And so much more.
So I might have something to live for. The Olympics really is the only thing I have to live for. I am hanging on a string, sitting at home, staring at an unused laptop computer, waiting, hoping, longing for inspiration. I've watched repeats of events from past Olympics on the Olympic Channel almost as many times as even I can stand...OK. That's a lie. If there are no live Olympic broadcasts to watch I could binge watch past Olympic events all day. I have several saved on "DON'T EVER DELETE" on by DVR. I can never hear "Here comes Diggins!" too many times. No one outside of France will ever get sick of hearing Dan Hicks ask, "Can the veteran chase him down?" as Jason Lezak closes in on Alain Bernard in the 2008 4x100 freestyle relay. Even so, I want to see the new moments.
And today, after hearing the mostly good news about the 2021 Tokyo Games, I looked on the inter-webs and found the single fact that could make me pick up that slow, dusty laptop computer and reach out to you. I could not have picked a better day to find the motivation to care about something, because that brief moment of caring led me to this discovery that I now share with you. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing start on February 4, 2022! If I remember how to read a calendar correctly, that means we are exactly one year away from both the SUMMER and the WINTER Olympics!! How about a double, indeed!! I could get Jessie Diggins and Caeleb Dressel in the same 365 day period? And that 365 day period begins today? I have found my Holy Grail and thy name is Asia. As in give me my Olympics from Asia this summer and next winter. This was enough to even get me out of bed today. And seriously, nothing gets me out of bed. I just lay there, all day, reading 1274 text messages from the same group of 7 people. Yes, 1274 messages on average, per day. Seven people. That is my life. Wait, that WAS my life. Now, two Olympics! One Year! One! New! Man!
I was so excited, I made lunch for my three boys, just so I could eat with them and tell them my exciting news. Shockingly, they lacked my enthusiasm. I told the Wife. She was just happy I got out of bed and stopped asking "Where is Diggins?" Eldest did have the courtesy to comment that we have never had TWO Olympics in one year before. I was so excited that he showed even an ounce of caring that I excitedly said, "I KNOW!" And then, it hit me. We had two Olympics in the same Calendar year every four years from 1924 until 1992 (except of course 1940 and 1944.) I was devastated. The single fact to get me out of my funk was merely a return the norm of life for literally the first 20 years I was alive (as well as the previous 70 or so years (don't ask me to do math - remember the inertia thing))?
However, I have recovered. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it has taught us that we need to find small victories. (I think I said that before, at the beginning of the pandemic. Then I was inertiaed. And started making up words.) I don't care that the summer and winter Olympics were in the same year for decades. I only care that I might, just might, get to see both in the next year. I got to see my favorite cross country skier literally tear down a pull up bar with her incredible strength, just because I was inspired by the next year of my life. I get to dream of Caeleb Dressel and Simone Biles and the US Soccer Team and Beach Volleyball and Biathlon and dozens of other athletes and sports and stories. I'm even looking forward to Mary Carillo and her stories. I miss her stories.
Things are looking up. Vaccines are happening. My kids might actually go to school. I got out of bed. And there are two Olympics coming in the next 365 days. Thank you Olympic Gods. Yes, I'll take a double.
