The Olympic Games start in a few weeks! I love watching the games on TV. In case you haven't noticed by now, Olympic athletes are not like the rest of us. Just look at them and you realize immediately that we mere mortals just don't compare! That's one of the reasons I fight depression while the Olympics are on. For two or three weeks I get to be depressed and have my self image shattered beyond recognition while watching all the athletes from all the different countries swim, run, perform gymnastics, high jump, long jump (I think there is another jump but, I can't remember what it's called, maybe it's the pole vault) dive from a high place, dive from a not so high place, dive together, dive alone and do things I have not been able to do since I was sixteen years old, and even then I didn't do them very well. It's not only injurious to my self image, but dangerous to my well being as well.
I have to admit that I avoid looking in mirrors when the Olympic games are on, that way I can look at all these athletes and imagine that my body is in the same shape as theirs without having it reality bite me in the ass. I feel like I am part of the team then, and I usually try to go workout or something. Injury is common for me when the Olympics are on. There is only so much a body that has not worked out all year can do before it gives up. You can tell yourself that you are in just as good a shape as the Olympic athletes all day long, but when you can't lift 75 pounds it becomes pointless and depressing. I don't even try to swim, I would cramp up and drown after the first half a lap. At least my delusion has a survival component to it.
I do feel more patriotic during the games. Cheering for Team USA feels good and I am proud when one of our team athletes win a medal. One year I actually had one of those silver medals, I bought it and wore it during the Games and I have to admit that it felt pretty cool, especially when I was standing on the winners platform I built! When the games were over I took it off and put it in a box until the next games. I suspect my wife has hidden it from me by now, she was embarrassed when I wore it to the grocery store, so I'll probably have to go out and buy a new one. Maybe I'll get a gold medal this time.
The winter Olympics are different for me then the summer games. I don't care much for the snow and cold, and I don't have to avoid mirrors etc. Besides, the athletes at the winter games have more clothes on so you can't really tell that they are gods among men like you can the summer game's athletes, except for the downhill skiers. You can tell they are in good shape because they wear tighter ski clothes to reduce wind drag as they fly down the slopes at a hundred miles an hour or so. I don't watch the down hill skiing for that reason, it's not cold enough inside for me to walk around in ski clothes and my wife won't let me go out in purple ski outfits. I don't want to go up on the mountain with one of those outfits on anyway, someone may think I can ski, then I'll have to show them by skiing down a steep slope at a hundred miles an hour or so at which time it will be back to the emergency room for me if history repeats itself as it often does.
So, I'm looking forward to the summer Olympic games. I think I'll concentrate on the equestrian sports this year, that way I won't have to get depressed and wish I was in better shape, and I won't have to go workout and hurt myself again. I just have to figure out how I am going to set up jumps in my back yard for the new horse I am going to buy. The family will like that (maybe my wife will give me back my silver medal). I wonder if Shetland ponies can jump?
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