Torino

I can't get enough of the Olympics. I'm a sucker. I tear up during the medal ceremonies like a proud momma. I've even been known to shed a tear for curling medals (I had no idea the women's Swedish curling team was that hot). I'm just so happy for all the athletes. They work so hard and for so little thanks. I found out last night that one of the American bobsledders was the first black person ever to win a medal in a winter Olympics. The medal was four years ago in Salt Lake City and she's back in Torino to try again. This time she brought her young twins, one who has been deaf since birth but just had some crazy surgery involving electrodes fused to his brain and now he's responding to sound for the first time in his life. And there's this ice skater from Latvia or Lithuania or somewhere like that whose parents saw her potential, sold the family business, and moved to Canada and lived in near poverty so she could train. She skated beautifully but her parents weren't there to see it because they couldn't afford the trip. This stuff kills me. How much could a plane ticket cost? Why didn't we hear about this before the Olympics? I have to think people would have sent money. I have to think that I would have sent money. I watched this thing about an ice-skating pair and learned that she works in a convenience store, and up to three other jobs at the same time, to keep her Olympic dream going. A convenience store. That's crazy to me. One of the world's premiere athletes could be selling me Diet Pepsi before heading off to a grueling workout routine. And their parents. Their parents must feel such joy and pride. I can't get enough of this stuff.

It was easy to stay up late in Alaska because the days were so long. After dinner I'd go camp out in the J3 office and chat like a schoolgirl with a friend of mine. As I sit here and think back, it seems like some of the most honest conversation I’ve ever had. It was the first time I admitted out loud that I wanted my parents to be proud of me, the first time I admitted (sheepishly) that I wanted a man to take care of me, and the first time I confessed that I'm afraid to need because if I do, and my needs aren't met, it means that a relationship with me is not worth the inconvenience. And that quite frankly, I'm not ready to know if I'm worth it or not. It doesn't sound like much but at the time it was big.

How does this relate? I feel like the Olympics and what they represent would have been a frequent part of the conversations in the J3. There should be something out there that I want to dedicate myself to with the fearless devotion of an Olympic athlete. Not a sport but something else. I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do in order to be a success: dedicate myself completely to something or anything. I just have no idea what. I do have this concept for a non-profit that nags at me from time to time but I’m not sure it’s anything real. I know I don’t want to be a social worker or anything altruistic like that. How is it that my 30th birthday is right around the corner and I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up? For me that’s the purgatory part of the military. I feel like it’s a holding pen keeping me right where I am until the day I’m released. That’s when I get to move on with my life. I just need to figure out what that life is going to be (and start moving that way now).