Thoughts From A Non Medalist

Every four years, the entire world gets a reminder of how inadequate we are; it is called the Olympics.  We watch, we cheer, we are happy when our team wins and sad when they lose.  But ultimately, we realize we had nothing to do with their success and will never measure up. 

I remember when I was a girl feeling very sad the first time I realized I would never be an Olympian, I was heartbroken (for as long as an eight year old pays attention to anything).  Now that I am an adult, I look at all these athletes, most of whom are younger than me and know I missed my ‘window’.  However, I don’t feel sad for my loss, but theirs.  I listen to 15 year old medalists say they have worked their entire life for that moment.  Their entire life! Can you imagine dedicating your entire childhood to a sport where you get one chance to be the greatest and peek at the age of 16?  No thank you.

I am pretty sure no one is ever going to give me a medal for anything, but I am pretty good at a lot of things. And more than that, I had the opportunity to experience a lot of things.  As a kid I played softball and swimming.  Took dance and art classes.  Dressed up and played pretend.  Went to Disneyland on summer vacation.  Camped at the lake.  Was in the band, the school play and hung out with my friends.  I did stuff.  Lots of stuff.

In college I went to football games, joined a sorority, and participated in student government.  I stayed out late, slept in late and occasionally dragged my butt to the gym.  I had a lot of fun not being a world class athlete.

Maybe I am trying to validate my choices in life or justify why I can sit on the couch eating pretzels while the best athletes in the word leave it all in the pool, gym or stadium.  Whatever the case may be, I appreciate what I have and wouldn’t trade all those experiences for a gold medal and all you have to give up to get one.  I respect the talented athletes who do make those choices.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them compete.  They may even have motivated me to hit the gym a little harder, but I certainly don’t feel like I am missing out.

Reflection

I am quickly approaching a milestone birthday this weekend, and as I reflect on the last decade I can’t help but think of all the amazing things I have done, people I have met and achievements I have earned.

In the spring of 2003 two important things happened: I graduated from college and made the decision to attend Syracuse to earn a masters.  At the advice of my guidance counselor I chose Syracuse over American University and Boston University, a choice that led me to the love of my live and events I could never have imagined.

That winter I met this guy….online.  This was before meeting people online was normal.  We hit it off and then one day he asked if we should meet.  Before leaving, I made sure people knew where I was going and would call to check on me, off I went.  I knocked on the door and this extremely tall guy wearing yellow warm up pants (you know, the kind that unzip at the knee) and a faded Syracuse basketball T-shirt answered the door. Unimpressive.  We watched Bull Durham, drank Yuengling and talked late into the night.  Two years later I married that guy.

After grad school, I moved back to California, driving 3,000 miles with my then boyfriend through about 10 states in less than four days.    If that isn’t a test of compatibility, then I don’t know what is.  We visited such national treasures as Little America, WY (home of the 10¢ soft serve and the only bathroom for 400 miles), a monument erected in honor of Buffalo Bill Cody and a classic car road race pit stop in Elko, NV.  We arrived in California the day before the Fourth of July.  The following day we took the ferry to Pac Bell park on a beautiful sunny day in San Francisco to watch the A’s play the Giants.  I don’t remember if the A’s won or not, I just remember being very happy.

Shortly thereafter we got jobs, there was a proposal, and a wedding.  We moved into our first apartment in Oakland.  I remember a friend from grad school recommending to me that I don’t get killed when I told her we were moving to Oakland, advice heeded.  We stayed in Oakland for three years which included many trips to the farmers market and Colonial Donuts on Saturdays, a tiny Mexican restaurant on the other side of Lake Merritt for the best mole I have ever had and the discovery of Kamakura in Alameda, still my favorite sushi place.

In May of 2008 as we sat by the pool at a resort in the Dominican Republic listening to Bocelli, we started to talk about baby names for when we had kids; Carol Ann if we had a girl, Connor James if it was a boy.  This was of course after my husband had only half-jokingly threw out George Washington as an option. Nope.  A year later, we brought beautiful Carol Ann home from the hospital.

After I got pregnant, we looked around our little apartment and tried to figure out how we could make it work with a baby.  We couldn’t.  We weighed the merits of being closer to work, versus closer to family. Proximity toamily was the right choice.  We bought a house near my parents.  At the time I couldn’t possibly imagine how we would fill it.  Now, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t have perhaps got a bigger house.  A few years later we brought Brianna Michelle home from the hospital to complete our family.

The last ten years have brought me as far north as Hadrian’s Wall and as far south as the jungles of the Dominican Republic.  I have changed my name, brought two amazing people into the world and hopefully have made a positive difference. I can only hope that the next ten years are as blessed as the last and can’t wait to see what happens next.