Love.

We’ve all been there … and continue to go when mentally strolling down Memory Lane when a certain song comes on. Who hasn’t paused and smiled when remembering those early crushes? The safe Cupid’s-arrow ones aimed from a distance with no expectations of reciprocation. Ones your kids laugh at when you share in moments of weakness the names of athletes, celebrities and musicians you idolized. (Micky Dolenz? Don’t judge).

Then there are the loves forever etched in the heart, where you know exactly where, exactly when, exactly what you were wearing when falling … and hard … and even more so when falling out of love … even harder.

Yet when it comes to this one particular love, one of the longest lasting, I haven’t a clue as to when or why. It just seems like it always has been.

The Olympics.

The earliest recollections are always in black and white, matching the images on TV and in the newspaper.

There was a pixie of a gymnast from the USSR, Olga Korbut, who was six months younger than me when she wowed her way to three gold medals in Munich in 1972. Her routines were as mesmerizing as they were daring, she becoming the first Olympic gymnast to do a backward somersault on the beam and the first to do a back flip to catch on the uneven bars. Those seem mundane when compared to what Simone Biles is capable of doing, but Korbut literally raised the bar for all those who followed in her chalky 4-foot-11 footsteps.

The 1972 Games also reinforced the underlying darkness that always has been intertwined with its roots from Ancient Greece. Much like the ancient Hawaiians and the Makahiki, the Greeks ceased all warfare during the times of the annual competition that rotated among four locations: Corinth, Delphi, Namea and, of course, Olympus.

Or at least they tried. There is historical documentation that peace was sometimes as elusive as that victor’s laurel wreath, and that politics often shared the podium, just as it did in Mexico City in 1968.

The Black Power Salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos was done to protest racial segregation in the U.S. and around the world, and the racism in sports in general. That moment capped what had been a year of unrest and uncertainty, with the shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and the escalating anti-war sentiments over Vietnam with protests in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

What happened at the playing of the national anthem during the 200-meter medal ceremony — Smith wearing his gold medal, Carlos his bronze — had me and many others around the globe paying attention. Perhaps that is the moment my love affair with the Games began.

It has continued for over four decades of a sports writing career with the honor of telling the stories of athletes from a historical perspective, chronicling Hawaii’s rich history that began with Duke Kahanamoku in 1920.

It’s been a privilege to preview their hopes and dreams before they competed and, later, after they became household names. Two of the best from the islands were at the 2008 Beijing Games: Bryan Clay (decathlon champion) and Clay Stanley (gold medalist and MVP of the men’s volleyball competition).

In my mind, covering the Olympics would be a career pinnacle. Dang, I turned down the chance to work for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee in 2008.

Another chance was last summer in Tokyo, either for the Star-Advertiser or USA Volleyball. Didn’t happen … and neither did the Olympics.

Which brings me to the tragedies of the Games, the ones beyond Munich 1972 when two Israeli Olympians were killed by terrorists. I think of 1980 when President Carter announced the boycott of the Moscow Olympics, a noble but misguided (IMHO) protest of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The brother of my future husband was one of the 1,000-plus U.S. athletes who had to settle for visit to the White House (many boycotted) and a “special” medal. M. Christopher Wells was a coxswain on that crew team later immortalized in David Halberstam’s “The Amateurs.”

Chris didn’t get to compete at the Krylatskoye Basin in Moscow, nor did he have a chance to qualify for the 1984 competition on Lake Casitas, Calif. He was killed in a shipyard accident in 1981 right after he had made the decision to try for ’84.

It’s a painful reminder of the fragility of life, particularly when it comes to an athlete’s shelf life. It is even more painful knowing that Carter could have opted for a grain embargo rather than deny America’s best the opportunity to prove it on the world stage.

I applaud all the athletes who put their lives on hold for another year in order to pursue their Olympic dreams this month. But I also feel for those who thought they’d be walking into Japan National Stadium last July 23 but won’t be in the parade of nations a week from now.

Whether it be injury, a coach’s decision, a random drug test or life simply getting in the way, their name is no longer where it was 12 months ago. On the roster.

Their moment in time has passed … forever.

For many, the signature moment of the Games is when the Olympic cauldron is lit during the Opening Ceremony.

For me, it is the poignancy of the Closing Ceremony, this time on Aug. 8, when the Olympic flag is lowered as the Greek national anthem is played and the cauldron is extinguished.

What’s love without a few tears?