Land of the free

I'm still addicted to the Olympics. I imagine that anyone who grew up playing a sport has at some point thought about what it would feel like to play for your country, stand on a podium, lower your head and feel the weight of a medal hanging around your neck.

My Olympic addiction is keeping me up way too late, even despite the fact that I already know the results posted hours before their televised coverage. I'm postponing sleep not because I want to see the outcome, but because I want to see the athletes. I love seeing how they respond to pressure, to success, to failure. I have sacrificed for sport. By no means am I saying that I can empathize with the sacrifice an Olympic athlete make, but I did have to give up a lot in my youth. While I didn't get a gold, I did get a college scholarship out of it and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

My favorite part of competition--almost more than competing itself--was always the playing of the National Anthem prior to each match. I would not consider myself extremely patriotic, at least not in the ethnocentric, entitled, ugly American sort of way, but I am proud to be American. And every time I hear the Anthem it induces thoughts about just how fortunate I am, thankful for the opportunities that have been afforded me. Thankful for a loving family, a sense of safety, and a very fortunate life that had helped to get me there. Chills and choked up. Every time.

And watching the Olympics and hearing the Anthem opens the flood gates of emotion. To see the athletes, a majority of them everyday people with special athletic talent and fantastic work ethic (I played against a few of some of the big guns from these games in high school, they are normal people, incredibly talented, but normal, I swear), to see families up in the stands, imagining the sacrifices, the pent up emotions, and then to think about what I imagine competing for your country feels like, overwhelms me every time. No matter what you may think about the state of our country it has to be an unbelievable feeling of pride.

So when I sit here and hear the Anthem playing, it immediately takes me back to my pre-match routines and reminds me that even though I never made it to the biggest court in the world, the sacrifices I made helped get me to where I am today; the love and support of my family are my foundation; and that living here has most definitely made that possible.