Gifted

Posted August 22nd, 2004 by Michelle

I’m losing hours and hours of sleep because I can’t stop watching the Olympics. Those athletes are just incredible. I bawled through the preliminary show of the women’s marathon- how is it possible that that event has only been a part of the Olympics for twenty years? It’s outrageous. It means that I was twelve years old the first time women got to run an Olympic marathon. Yeesh.

I couldn’t move from the television while the women were running. The pace they keep for 26 plus miles is one I couldn’t keep around the block. It made me think about the Olympic life- what the athletes have to give up even to get close to these games. And what of the hopefuls that have to work full-time jobs when they need all that time to train? Or the people born to excel in a particular sport who somehow never discover their talent? This is the idea that haunts me, particularly when I think about my generation. So many thirtysomethings have no idea what they want to do with their lives, and I fear it’s just that they haven’t picked up the bat or sat down to the computer or put pen to paper at the right time and so they have yet to find their calling. I don’t think the Phates ignored even one crib when they were handing out blessings; but what if Lance Armstrong had never gotten on a bike? Or Michael Hamm never jumped on the parallel bars? Or worse yet, what if Michael Chabon or Toni Morrison had to work too many shifts at Wendy’s and never had time to write?

Maybe if you are truly meant to do something, you make it happen no matter what, but that seems reductive and simplistic and maybe even silly. When I was in college, my boyfriend Rob and I went to the park to play catch and for the first time in probably 15 years I lifted a bat and hit Rob’s pitch. Hit it much further than I expected. By the end of the day, Rob was actively angry that I had never played softball before because clearly I was gifted. But, really, I probably wasn’t as good as he thought, and I do not feel like I’ve missed out on a life of softball. The question is… how often does this happen? How often does someone wait until it’s almost too late to realize a talent?

I do believe that if we do not use our gifts, they are taken from us, so I best get singing.