I was going to write a blog named Dark Circles based on the thousands of dollars I’ve invested in eye creams, serums and other voodoo, but after watching the Olympics Men’s Figure Skating Final that seemed irrelevant.  

His name is Ilia Roman Malinin.  He gave himself the name the “Quad King” and is already viewed as the best figure skater of all time and he’s just twenty one years old.  I’m sure everyone knows that his expected Olympics outcome did not happen.  Not by a long shot.  His quest for a gold medal wreaked of relevance to a syndrome I’ve always been intrigued by.  

What’s the difference between panicking and choking?

When I was seven or eight, we took a family vacation and stayed in a cottage on a lake.  We had a beach that was all ours and life was beautiful, until the day I tried to swim out to the sand bar to join my brother.  Well I doggie paddled since I didn’t and still don’t know how to swim.  I got within ten feet of the sand bar when I got a cramp in my leg.  I quickly switched from paddling to flailing.  I panicked.  I panicked because I didn’t know how to swim and couldn’t draw on an experience to help me.  So I’m flailing, my mother is on the beach screaming for my brother to save me and my brother is laughing then says:

Stand up you idiot.  

I stood up and realized the water was just covering my ankles.  I got several looks of disgust.  I think my family wanted something more juicy to happen like a near death story they could tell their friends.  A what I did on my summer vacation zinger.  But the only thing that happened was I panicked.  Curtain down.

So today, Ilia Malinin takes the ice in the Men’s Final with a comfortable first place lead and proceeds to unravel like a sweater in the clearance bin at Target.  He went from being invincible to looking completely out of control.  Flailing on ice.  He had all the knowledge needed to do what he had to do, but he couldn’t access it.  Something was in the way.  He didn’t know how to recover from an unexpected mistake.  He’d rarely made one.  All that extensive training and knowledge wasn’t accessible since he was trapped in the midst of choking.  

You panic when you don’t know what to do.  

You choke when you know everything you should be doing.

Well it was horrible to watch.  Goddamnit Ilia.  This country needed something good to happen and you screwed it all up.  Just kidding for the sake of those more literal thinkers but while I felt terrible for him, I felt worse for myself.  When we watch the expected fall victim to the unexpected, maybe we choke too.  And the older I get I find myself choking in the midst of daily things like grocery shopping.  I keep a list on my cell yet insist I can do it all from memory.  Well then I get stuck.  I freeze up with anxiety.  Enter my good friend Xanax.  After I pop one, I’m okay in a few minutes.  Which makes me wonder … what if Ilia had a spare Xanax tucked into his sleeve?  Was this meltdown avoidable?

I don’t know what the Olympic rules are regarding prescription drugs, but what’s the problem?  If I can pop a pill while grocery shopping, why can’t Ilia pop one while he’s sprawled out on a sheet of ice?  Maybe they could have a choking grace period immediately after your first screw up when you pop away.  Maybe Lindsey Vonn wouldn’t be in traction.  Maybe Ilia wins and everyone’s happy.  I cast one vote for happy.

Since it’s part of life to panic or choke and it’s part of life to request an Rx from your shrink, I say let’s stop the drama and get on with it.  A fire in the kitchen?  Your dog gets loose? You’re just one pill away from resetting your brain.  So don’t worry, be happy.