Post Olympic Hangover

The prevailing attitude around the city today seems to be bewilderment. How can it be over? Didn't it just start? It's like Christmas dinner: days and hours to prepare, eaten in ten minutes. We've been gearing up for these games for literally years, and then in a short two weeks it's all gone. Where? How? When?

What ever will be do with our time now? Not to mention our outfits of red covered with maple leaves?

Yes, sure, we still have the Paralympics left to soothe the aching hole in our hearts, but it's just not the SAME, you know? (Well, except for the insane road closures around my office. THOSE will be the same. Dammit.)

In the meantime, we are left clinging to the legacy of the games ... whatever that might be. No one seems to have clearly decided. That we actually have some patriotism where we thought there was none? That there's more to us than mounties and hockey players and snow (clearly, on the latter; there wasn't nearly enough of that!) And really, if nothing else, the Closing Ceremonies did nothing to get us away from THAT legacy.

(Did anyone else feel horrified by parts of that? Oh, Lord, there were many parts I sat, head in hands, moaning "Dear Lord what were you THINKING?" The enormous mounties and the hockey players and the little child puck running around ... not to mention the VANOC guy who completely butchered the French portion of his speech. God, I haven't taken French since high school and I'm pretty sure my accent is better than that. And don't even talk about Catherine O'Hara's speech, that was just plain embarrassing.)

I hope that in the end we are left with this: Canada seems to have an off hand inferiority complex. Our place around the world involves being self-deprecating and quiet about things, because we secretly believe that we are not as powerful as the US, not as sophisticated as the French, as worldly as the British, as cool as the Australians, as cultural as ... I don't know, everyone else. We are a hodge-podge country, a patchwork quilt, and unity, homogenity is really the basis for national pride and cohesiveness. We bicker amongst ourselves, we resent the heck out of the have provinces while maintaining stauch pride in ... sometimes our own province, or our city, or even just our neighbourhood -- the largest piece of the pie with which we can safely identify.

And we pretend it doesn't matter -- there are so many good things about Canada that the cracks in the facade don't really matter.

And I hope that what we proved to ourselves is that we have more cohesiveness than we thought. We all got behind those athletes and cheered them on, we put on a show. And it was a pretty good one.

And what's more is that we didn't come fifth all the time. We made some major strides forward in these games: the most medals we've ever won in the Winter Games. The most gold medals of any host country. The most gold medals OF ALL TIME. We did that. Us. The runner up, the little sibling, the polite person you overlook at the party.

I hope that we maintain our humility. I like Canada when we believe we don't know everything, because we don't. But I also hope that we don't skulk around the international scene, acting as though we're glad someone invited us. We belong there. And I hope the games proved that to us once and for all.

We didn't need to convince the world. No one else cares -- they don't see our lack of self-esteem.

We just needed to convince us.