Dateline 8-20-2016

It's the last couple days of the Olympics and I have to say... 

I'm going to miss it. 

I've always had a special place in my heart for the Olympics because when I was a kid, both the summer and winter Olympics were set to the same four-year cycle as my leap year birthday. I was also a kid during the final years of the Cold War with Russia when there was still a real good guys vs bad guys feel to the event that got everyone watching with a passion that made my birthday years very exciting.

I've also had a weird run of luck to where I've always been going through some life change during my birthday years that allowed me free time to focus on the games. Of course, during my school years, there was nothing that noteworthy that allowed me the time to fully focus on the games but from 2000 on it's almost been a tradition to have a lighter workload that allowed me to be a full-time fan.

In 2000, I was laid off from Amazon.com. I started when they were just selling books. I left with enough stock options to take a lot of time off to do what I want and what I wanted was to watch the Olympics. Four years later, I was in film school and though I had school work to focus on, I was living in another country and couldn't have a job so I spent a lot of time writing in front of the TV and luckily for me I had the Olympics to keep me entertained.

Hm... now that I think about it, that's all I've got. I guess what happened was. I was a huge fan of the Olympics as a kid, Then the first two Olympics when I was on my own as an adult happened during significant times of my adult life which solidified my already established love of the event and led me to build up a bigger backstory than what is actually there because though I watch the 2008 games, nothing of significance stands out to me, and I barely watch in 2012. 

I guess this year's games are also taking place during a significant time as I am in the middle of a career change/life overhaul. I mainly remember being rich (for me) in 2000 and spending the summer sitting on the couch guilt free drinking and watching without a worry in the world. Then 2004 having the games in the background as I was fulfilling another fantasy of living in Canada as I attempted to legitimize my dream to write for the screen.

In general, I think I've always been stuck trying to recapture those feelings from that window of time. The only time when I had genuine hope and felt I was on the verge of success. Everything after that's been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Hopefully, I'll someday figure out how to pull off this convoluted stunt of mine and return to a reality of progress. I reality where I'm no longer chasing dreams but have landed at least one of them allowing me to rest my ever running mind...

How did I get here?

Oh well, time to get to work.

Talk to you tomorrow,

- The Wicker Breaker