Melancholympics

Melancholympics (noun): that feeling of emptiness one experiences on the Monday after the Olympic Closing Ceremonies

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I find the Olympic Closing Ceremonies very depressing. Not because of the aging rock stars or any other of the standard closing ceremony ridiculousness, but for a couple other reasons.

First of all, it’s like putting the Christmas tree away when you are a kid. That thing that you had spent months looking forward to is all of a sudden utterly and completely over. I really do love the Olympics, and I am sad when they are over, in other words.

Secondly, and most importantly, because they only happen every two years, the Closing Ceremonies really do make one evaluate their own mortality, their situation, their life in general. Where will I be in two years when the Opening Ceremonies in Sochi kickoff? What about in four years when the summer games open in Rio?

Four years is a long time. A lot can change. Positive change, negative change, neutral change. It’s kind of scary when you think about it.

It just makes me melancholy. Will the people I love still be here in two years? In four?

There is a line in a really great Erin McKeown song called “Daisy and Prudence” that goes: “This is a moment we’ll mark time by.”

And, well, I guess I mark time by the Olympics.

That’s all.

Tomorrow, more cricket, I promise.