SHUT UPPP

So newsflash: I love the Olympics. Like, love to the point where it becomes a little crazy and obsessive and I'm not really doing much in the evenings these days because I'm watching the Olympics instead. I've always been this way, and I do it during the winter Olympics too just not as much because let's face it, I can count the number of days I've spent in a "winter" environment on my fingers. Anyway.

I am so impressed by what we're capable of. Usually I look at what we as human beings have done and kind of shake my head and sadly say "Damn..." but the past couple of days watching people who have sacrificed, driven, dreamed, and pushed their entire lives for these few days has reaffirmed my faith that we are capable of being bigger. Rising above is humanity's natural state, and I feel like we move further from that with each war, trashy reality show (oh how I love them), intolerant state of mind, hateful word, fast food chain, impatient moment, and political decision. But sitting in my parents' living room flipping out over an intensely exciting swimming race (I'm just saying...don't make four American athletes angry before you jump in the pool with them. Consider THAT a lesson learned, France.) jumping up and down with my family and our dogs(!) and knowing that across the world there are hundreds of thousands of people feeling the same way, doing the same thing, I am reminded that we are all connected all of the time. I might not know any of their names, where they come from, what they believe in, but it absolutely does not matter. The point is that they are exactly the same as me on a human level, and because we are all exactly the same, we are all individual pieces of something much bigger and more powerful than any of us know.

And we are all connected from birth until death, whether we nurture the connection or not. It's an amazingly comforting thought and it's the reason that I geek out with anticipation months before the opening ceremonies. It's why I love Christmas time - there is nothing that I share with more people on a more regular basis. I love feeling human.