Withdrawal

Seventeen days later, it’s over. Another Winter Olympics finished and in the books. I know I’ve written a lot about my love of the Games — enough to recognize that I might have been a wee bit obsessed.

It’s more than the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Watching the Olympics in our house is like a 2-week pajama party.

We eat lots of pizza and serve as our own color-commentary for the competitions and the commercials alike. Of course, we’ve missed some of the nightly telecasts because life with its schedules and events and concerts goes on.

Chess Club Master

But most nights you could find us downstairs together. That’s what I’ll miss most.

Manicure of Olympic Ring colors

It’s been strange to watch live TV together. We almost never do that. The kids are so accustomed to the DVR that they’ll say, “Pause it! I gotta run upstairs.” It took a couple of times of explaining that this is live and there’s no going back. In this two weeks, they’ve learned the fine art of timing the commercials to change in pjs, brush teeth, grab a drink of water and then fly down the steps and vault onto the couch before it’s back on. These are the long-lost skills from my childhood.

It’s weird to think that this generation won’t ever really understand things like the “kid remote control” (in which you have to take turns with your siblings to run up to the TV and click the dial around one channel at a time until your dad yells “Wait! That was it — go back.”). They’ve never had to adjust the rabbit-ear antenna or (worse) hold onto one end of it while sticking the other arm out in weird positions to tune the picture. They don’t even know what the “U” channels are. (Ah, the U channels! The stations of my sick-days and snow-days off school!).

Watching the Olympics live with the kids made me a little nostalgic for a simpler, less-hectic time — like when I was a kid. It just didn’t seem like we had the same pressures and activities and weight of stuff coming at them from all directions. Sure we can now text our kid in school, but is that better?

I told my husband S how I wondered if all this technology had really helped us progress as people or if we were drowning in a noise-filled ocean of choices and distractions. Know what he said?

“Yeah, but didn’t you have to hand-shovel your driveway as a kid too?”

Good point. Perhaps living in the now isn’t all that bad.

Are you happy the Olympics are over or will you miss them like me? And do you remember clicking through the U-channels for “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Hogan’s Heroes” as well? 

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