The View From Here – Channeling Your Inner Athlete

Are you watching the Olympic games?  Do you have a favourite event?  One that you love to watch?  One you wish you could have been part of?

I’m not an athlete.  I don’t love sports.  Not that I don’t love the game, I’m just not good at anything and I choose not to get hit by things flying too quickly at my face.

I was really good at bowling when I was younger.  Five pin.   I was almost forced to do it, and then ended up loving it and doing really well at it.  That’s as close as I come to being athletic and I’m totally fine with that.

But there are times, when I IMAGINE I could be good at something.  There are times when I have that dream that I am better at something than I really am.   Like figure skating.

I guess that would be the one sport I love to watch.  In amazement.

When I was a kid, my dad would build us an ice rink every year.  And when I got on the ice, I became someone else.  Dorothy Hamill maybe?  I had the bowl cut to match.  So I channeled my inner athlete.  The one I could never be.  I would do figure eights on that ice and pretend I was a real skater.  One who wasn’t struggling just to keep standing upright.  In my head I was doing those jumps and spins.  In my backyard I was lifting a leg and wobbling around the ice.  But it was something I loved to do and will never forget those days on the backyard ice rink.

I watch some of the games and am always amazed by the incredible talent these athletes have.  The strength, dedication and pure love of the sport.   To see them do something they love to do and are really so good at.  You can’t help but be amazed.

I will never be an athlete.  I will never love sports.   Unless shopping or scrapbooking becomes a sport.  Then I’m in.  But I will always be amazed by those who are.

Congratulations to all our Olympic athletes competing at the Tokyo games.

You inspire us.   And maybe I can’t do what you’re doing, but you’ve at least inspired me to get off the couch.  And as I went for a swim at Ipperwash Beach last week, I channeled my inner athlete.  Pretending, as I did the doggy paddle, that I was doing something much more challenging and graceful and worthy of a medal.

We are all so proud of you.

© Can Stock Photo / yarruta

Categorised in: Afternoons

This post was written by Carrie Buchanan