"Never Again"

With round-robin matches beginning in the sport of curling, the XXIV Olympic Winter Games have begun in China. The Olympics have always been a mile marker of sorts in the way I organize my memories. From my introduction to hockey in the Albertville games, or my short-lived desire to be a skier after the Lillehammer games (seriously, the one time I went skiing is a hilarious story that I'll have to write about sometime) I can recall each Olympics with detail. However, this post isn't about the fond memories of each Olympics but rather another post how a small, seemingly irrelevant thing can create an emotional response.

As with this post last month that I spoke about memories of a water tower, I can have an emotional attachment to things that are lost or over. At the age of six I cried and cried when 1989 ended and became 1990 because it would "never again be 198X". 

It can get a tad bit annoying to have this, but as I've written several times the "everything is now" memory recall system makes ends all the more difficult because it represents change and almost all of the time "change is bad". 

So, let's get to the topic of this post and why I mentioned the Olympics. It has to do with the most recent example I had of a small event creating a vacuum of sorts in the memory system. It was the Tokyo 2020 Olympic video game and the title menu.

As the Games approached, on the title screen, there was a message relaying how many days it was until the Olympics began. Seeing that didn't do anything to me, but when the Games began the message, as seen in this picture, said that "The Olympic Games are on!" During those 17 or so days that message was displayed but the first day I noticed that message I stared at it and became flooded with unfiltered emotions. I find it strange that something just like that message can create a storm of emotions. However, it did, and realizing that, when the Games were over, that message would never be displayed again.

Maybe it's ends I'm emotional towards and perhaps afraid of and things like a year-end or a message notifying the world that the Games are on are a reminder that all things come to an end. Ends are the worst because whatever is may never be again. Maybe it's Asperger's, or maybe it's not, but I've often seen everything at once which means that, when I think of an end, I'm seeing every potential end to come. This is why I do what I can to avoid emotions, because when an emotion like the realization that the Games are on message will never be seen again, I fear every possible thing in the future that will never be again. Change may be bad, but ends that will never be again are overwhelming.