dream a little dream.

Olympic feverrrrrr. I has it too.

The other day boyfriend asked me which events were my favorites and there was only one answer: women's baby female gymnastics.

[Side note: surely the IOC is embarrassed by their application of the term "women's" when referring to the female half of gymnastics? They're all babies. Seriously. Nastia Liukin is like the tallest gymnast ever at 5'3"; I haven't been 5'3" since 2nd grade (seriously). Don't even get me started on those Chinese athletes... they're tiny!]

I was at the ripe age of five when Kim Zmeskal had her epic fall off the balance beam in Barcelona, and all of nine years old when the Mediocre Magnificent Seven did their thing back in the '96 Atlanta games. I loved the sport from the moment I recognized it.

Unfortunately for me, I was pudgy, my family was poor, and I lacked any and all athletic talent that might have made the sacrifice worth the cost of sending me to gymnastics classes. I was never going to be a gymnast, but it didn't stop me from dreaming of it.

It always seemed like a fantasy watching these girls: they were tiny, skinny, toned, they had the best costumes, and most importantly they were winners. Or actually, as my poor young mind interpreted it, they were winners because they were pretty, skinny, and had the best costumes. Never mind their talent and all the unthinkable things they had to sacrifice to make their Olympic dreams happen. They had sequins.

I stopped watching the Olympics after the 1996 games because by then I was old enough to have been exposed to the harsh realities of professional sports. I kept waiting to hear that Dominique Moceanu would be reppin' the US in Sydney but as history would reveal, that would never happen. Fastly approaching 20 years of age, she was simply too old. How devastating to think of a person THAT YOUNG who had to sacrifice a childhood for a few years of excellence only to be condemned to a life of where-are-they-now spots before even reaching their second decade. If Dominique Moceanu wasn't good enough, how could I ever make something of myself?

I thought it was a curse that my family never had the resources to put me through any sports, dance lessons, beauty pageants, etc. As a young kid being excluded from such activities, I felt I was robbed of the chance to make friends and to mine the wealth of self-confidence that all the ballet girls and soccer girls and karate girls had that mocked me in its unattainable qualities. Little did I know, the ballet girls were being told they were too fat, the soccer girls were not fast enough, and the karate girls could never hit has hard as the boys. I felt betrayed to learn that the messiah of gymnastics, Bela Karolyi, spent hours a day every day telling his students that 98 pounds was too fat and they just weren't special enough. I mean no disrespect to the girls who represented our country in the 1996 Olympics, but women's gymnastics that year wasn't all that spectacular. Sure, Kerri Strug landed the shit out of that vault, but half the girls couldn't compete due to injury and the other half became injured during their events. They were beaten, battered, broken, and sprained, but much in the tradition of the sport these details didn't matter; there's no such thing as a sick day in gymnastics.

As a girl, and a fat one at that, I couldn't reconcile my love for the tumbling and spandex with the culture rampant with harm and neglect (both emotionally and physically). I let my interest in the Olympics subside until Beijing 2008, and the only reason I took interest was because of a wonderful little thing named Shawn Johnson.

O hey guuuuuurl.

Two things about Iowa: first, we get made fun of a lot; second, we're known for corn and Ashton Kutcher. Yeah, fuck.

It's kind of a big deal when we have something exciting to represent us in a positive light, and Shawn Johnson was four feet and nine inches of exactly that. I'm proud to have come from the same city (515 REPRESENT! wuuuuuut!) and even prouder that this fantastic athlete managed to reach the top while still going to school and only spending half the time as the gym as compared to her elite counterparts. This girl has a good head on her shoulders, so you can imagine how it broke my heart when the media pounced on her for gaining twenty pounds (let's be real, she needed that weight).

Still, I'm oddly attracted to the sick world of women's baby female gymnastics. I don't know a single person on this year's team which makes it hard to maintain interest, so I turned to my trusty friend Google to read everything I could on every American girl to make it to the Olympics in the last twenty years. I found my old BFF Kim Zmeskal (ask my mom about this... there's a funny story), I rediscovered the painfully impressive Shannon Miller (I was oh-so-jealous of her), and I found a name I had never seen before: Julissa Gomez.

She never made it to the Olympics, but I'm certain there isn't a gymnast out there who doesn't know her story. I found this piece on accident, it's an excerpt from a book that details the horrific goings-on of the female sports of figure skating and gymnastics. I almost wish I hadn't read it. Not only did it leave me with a tear-stained face at work, but now I'm plagued with this unshakable feeling knowing that two lives were lost in the pursuit of perfection.

I'm doing myself a favor this year by discovering all the other sports the Olympics puts on display, taking special care to avoid gymnastics. My heart aches for Jordyn Wieber and every other girl who will forever resent her body for failing her, myself included. I'm no gymnast, but I know the feeling of disappointment, I know the feeling of shame, I know the feeling of hopelessness. I have been told that I'm too fat, too slow, not good enough; I have hidden my tears and pushed through the pain and gone to bed hungry hoping that by tomorrow it will get better.

Does it ever get better?