Nostalgia- a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
I’m a pretty nostalgic person. I attach blissful moments to places, smells, food, songs, temperatures, you name it. I think most people are like this, but I don’t know how often other people identify it in their lives. I can see it in myself all the time. For example, I love my hometown because I lived there until I was 12, during the most innocent and happy years of my life. I love my grandparents house because it represents consistency, good food, family, and the ability to take a nap whenever you want. I love seagulls even though they are super annoying because they remind me of the lake and summer and French fries and the time one swooped down and picked just the pickle out of my sister Ivy’s cheeseburger. 🙂
I also love the Olympics.
My first memory of the Olympics is sitting on a stool in my dad’s lab at the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. I never really knew what he was doing, but I occupied my time by coloring and watching the old black and white TV he brought to the lab. I had colored pencils in a decorated Pringles can, a bound book of scratch paper, the Olympics, and my dad.
I didn’t need anything else.
I loved the gymnastics. I loved the synchronized diving. I loved seeing all the different people from all over the world. Even as a child, my passion was for people of the nations. I loved seeing their physical differences, looking at the colors of their outfits, memorizing the patterns of their flags. I loved seeing everyone come together with different backgrounds but the same goal. Watching the Olympics was the closest thing my 7-year-old self got to seeing the world and its people.
Sixteen years later and I’m in Nairobi, Kenya, counting down the days to the Olympics. I have watched the Olympics every year since it’s been on, and even been to every country that has hosted the Olympics since I was born (Spain, USA, Australia, Greece, China, and the UK). I was able to watch the opening ceremony from 11pm to 2am Kenya time with my team and my host brother. I have been hoping to watch women’s gymnastics, but apparently Kenyan TV only likes to show Kenyans in the Olympics, and gymnastics isn’t really their thing. Thankfully, God put my team at a hostel with satellite on just the right night and I was able to watch the US women’s gymnastics team win the gold. As I watched the TV I thought about all the other times I have watched the summer Olympics- in my dad’s lab, at our house is Minnesota, at our house in Iowa with our Danish foreign exchange student, with one of my best friends from college in her parents’ house in Pennsylvania. Every year is different, and every year is special.
When I went to London for the first time in 2005, I came home gushing. I fell in love with the city, and as a junior in high school I told my mom, “I’m going to go back to London in 2012 and see the Olympics!” Of course I didn’t really think I would, but last year a British friend of mine offered me a ticket to the opening tennis match. “If you come to England, I will give you my other ticket.” Even though it wasn’t gymnastics, giving up that ticket was hard. At this very moment in my life, when I haven’t had running water for a month and have taken five showers in 26 days, knowing that I am not home watching the Olympics with my family is hard. Remembering I said “no” to seeing the Olympics in one of my favorite cities in the world makes me cringe.
However, remembering I said “YES!” to God when he told me to travel the nations for Him makes everything better.
I know that God was giving me a treat by putting me in the right spot at the right time to be able to watch the games. Seeing our American women win the gold was even more special knowing that they haven’t won for sixteen years, since I first saw the Olympics in 1996.
Maybe my parents will buy me another gymnastics Barbie to celebrate.
1996
2012
Just for fun. She was a pretty sweet Barbie.
