<p>A week ago I posted about our dogs death and your support was amazing. As I mentioned in that thread, I suffered a stroke over a year ago and have been troubled by emotional incontinence, a common stroke after-effect, which is exactly what it sounds like. Think urinary incontinence, but instead of peeing my pants, I peed my face. I wouldnt watch a chick flick with a box of Kleenex, a box of Depends was more like it. But no more. I am now on medications that suppress my emotional reactions. So I didnt react emotionally to our dogs death. I was sad, but it was bottled up inside. Then I posted my thread, went out for a few hours, and returned home and checked CC to find all of your responses. They were caring, empathetic, and touching. The floodgates opened. I cried for the first time in nearly a year. Thanks to those of you who helped with that.</p>
<p>Nearly a week later tears came again, but this time more easily and more happily. Let me set it up. My son is a freshman at Princeton and is a member of the varsity fencing team. As you CC parents know, the Ivy League is just a sports conference, of course. And they take their conference pretty seriously. Neither the Princeton mens or womens fencing team had won an Ivy League championship in nearly a decade, but after a few years of aggressive recruiting, this season they found themselves in the hunt. The final league matches were held last Sunday at UPenn. Going into Sunday, both the Princeton mens and womens teams were undefeated in league matches. For the men, victories over Columbia and Harvard would clinch the Championship; the women were in a similar position, but with three matches to go.</p>
<p>The format for NCAA fencing matches is: each team has three fencers in each of the three weapons: saber, epee, and foil. Each fencer fences the other teams three fencers of their weapon, so there are nine bouts per weapon, or 27 bouts total. Each bout counts for one point in the team score, so once a team has won 14 bouts they are assured of winning the match by a score of at least 14-13.</p>
<p>I have physically “been there” for over 95% of DSs competitions over the years and if we lived in the northeast we would have been there this time too, but being 2000 miles away DW and I were at home catching up on Winter Olympics episodes we had recorded, and I was occasionally checking the Ivy League website for fencing updates. I only that DS had gone undefeated as Princeton defeated Columbia when I received this text message from DS:</p>
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<p>I cant begin to describe how happy I was as I envisioned him being hoisted in the air as the team celebrated the first Ivy Championship for any of them, including the coach, and especially for the wish you couldve been here part of his text.</p>
<p>I truly hope this post doesnt come off as boastful. Yes, my son is at Princeton, and for that I am proud. Yes, he played an important role in their victory, and I am proud about that, too. I also know full well that he wasnt the hero and that had he lost that bout Princeton would have clinched with somebody elses victory. I just want to share my joy with you all.</p>
<p>I couldnt help but contrast my joy and my pride with the manufactured emotional dramas being produced for the viewing publics benefit on the Olympics I had been watching.</p>
<p>As an aside, the Princeton woman fencer who won the clinching bout is the daughter of a CC parent who was very helpful to us when DS was going through the recruitment/admission process. As you might imagine, a joyful congratulatory PM was immediately sent.</p>