For the past few evenings, I’ve been watching the Paris Olympics the old fashioned way, on NBC. I refuse to purchase yet another streaming service, even as Peacock has the comprehensive schedule and streams real time and recorded events. Though I must admit, it’s tempting to gain access to real competitions instead of a curated summary that excessively favors coverage of US athletes and is interrupted every few minutes with commercials awash in treacle.
On the plus side, all those commercials give me ample opportunities to do my bedtime routine without missing anything.
Mostly, however, I’m in awe of what these amazing athletes can accomplish. And a bit envious of their perfect, young, strong bodies. What would it feel like to swim like Torre Huske and Gretchen Walsh, who clinched gold and silver on Sunday in the Women’s 100m Butterfly, finishing within split seconds of each other? Or to twirl in the air like the gravity-defying gymnast Simone Biles?
I was never much of an athlete. Correction: I was never an athlete, nor did I aspire to be one. I just wasn’t that coordinated or strong as a kid, and I found sports competitions stressful. Only once can I recall the thrill of winning a swimming race in the lake by our house. We were at some kind of summer neighborhood party, and I beat out all the other preteens in a race to the raft and back. I won a little red and purple paper flower award, and it felt great. But not great enough to get serious about swimming or any other form of athletic competition.
Sometimes I wonder, had I been more rigorous about exercising in my youth, would I have been able to avoid scleroderma. Not that there is any known connection between exercise and this strange disease. And athleticism is no guarantee of good health, though it certainly helps. I was very moved by the backstory of US gymnast Suni Lee, who has overcome debilitating kidney disease to compete in Paris. Even more than whatever medals she is likely to win for Team USA (she was all-around women’s gymnastics champion at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics), I think she already deserves a gold medal for her incredible grit. Same goes for Simone Biles, who confronted her deepest fears and insecurities about competing after she withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics four years ago, to once again dazzle the world with her truly extraordinary strength, coordination, and grace.
And that’s really the point. I have never been athletic—by choice and by genetics—and scleroderma certainly has put real limits on what my body can accomplish. But within those limits, there is still a lot that I can accomplish. It’s all about not giving up in the face of a daunting disease. It’s all about where I choose to place my focus—mental, emotional, spiritual, and, yes, even physical. Olympic feats are not limited to the Olympics.
Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.
