I’m sure you heard by now – most likely by me, since I’ve been posting and screaming about it for the past 24 hours. Yesterday, the International Olympic Committee announced that the host city for the 2026 Winter Olympics is going to be Milan, Italy, aka my hometown (along with Cortina, a lovely Italian town up in the Alps).

Now, you all know how much I love Milan. Heck, it’s literally the name of my website, my Instagram handle, my brand. I am obsessed with my hometown, I love it deeply and I dream, one day, of moving back there as a winner, doing something that I am passionate about, bringing my gained knowledge of the world back to my roots.

But if there is something in the whole world that I love more than Milan – and more than Chicago, my “other half” and adoptive hometown – is the Olympic Games. The Olympics represent everything I love: a global sporting event where hardworking athletes from all the possible different backgrounds unite in a celebration of sport, passion and excellence. The Games truly go beyond sport itself: they are a moment of unity, of peace, of celebration. And because of that, for as long as I can remember, my ultimate dream job has been to, one day, work for the Olympics.

Since I was a little girl, my father taught me to wait (impatiently) for the Games, and when they would come, he would watch them with me, teaching me rules to all of the sports so that I could enjoy them even more. I was obsessed with them.

At almost eight years old, in August of 2003, I visited the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. I thought it would be funny to show you what I looked like back then, as I proudly strolled around the museum and the gardens, feeling like I truly belonged there. I mean, look at me pointing at the sign in the back. I’m just like “Yup, I’m here.” Or maybe I was showing off my muscles? Either way, badass.

On that same day, I got my favorite stuffed animal, Pyrsos, an Olympic Torch. “What kind of kid has an Olympic torch as a stuffed animal?”, you might ask. Well, an Olympic nerd like me, that’s who.

It was a beautiful stuffed “animal” that I slept with every night, took on all my travels and my gymnastics trips. Here’s a picture I took exactly ten years after I got it. It lost both eyebrows and the Olympic Museum logo, but it’s still my most prized possession. It’s the one thing I would save from my house if it were to be on fire.

I talk about my time in Lausanne because it changed my life twice. It changed my life back then, when it gave me a dream to chase that was way too big for an almost-eight-year-old, and it changed my life again yesterday, fifteen years later, because that’s where the IOC announced Milan’s victory, making my dream of working for the Olympics as close as it’s ever been.

An incredibly small percentage of the world’s population lives to see the Olympics in their hometown. It’s rare to even have them in your home country, which for me happened in 2006 when the Games came to Turin, Italy: my father took us to watch a hockey game, Italy vs. Finland, where Italy lost 6-0; and yet, to me that was a dream, because I was at the Olympics.

Of course, as a little girl, I wanted to be part of the Olympics as an athlete, but when I reached my teenage years, I realized that I wanted to be involved on the administrative side. In fact, I realized I could be, if I really wanted to, the first female president of the International Olympic Committee. (yes, you can check. They’ve all been males. Let’s change that.) So then, I learned English and French, the two official languages of the Games. I moved across the world, in order to get international experience and a better college education. Did I do all of this with the sole objective of turning that dream into a reality? Not necessarily. However, I just think that there are too many coincidences in here. There has to be a reason why life seems to have prepared me for this moment.

Since then, the Olympics and I have crossed paths a few times. I skied down an Olympic slope in Whistler, Canada, home of the Vancouver 2010 Games, a couple of years ago.

I also wrote articles on my favorite moments of the Pyeongchang Olympics, which you can find here and here.

Then, last summer, I got the chance to attend the Cannes Lions festival – do I dare calling it the Olympics of Advertising? – where, at an NBC panel, I met not only people from the NBC Olympics team, but also one of my biggest role models, alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, and ice skater Adam Rippon.

Lastly, this past March, I went on a life-changing trip to London to study the Business of Sports. There, I was able to meet people who have been part of the Olympics, who have worked on or even headed the Games. I met professionals who worked on the London 2012 bid and won, and got the chance to tour London 2012 venues such as the Olympic Park, the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatics Centre and the Veladrome. Then, I chatted with the Director of Communications of the British Olympic Association and with PR professionals at Hill+Knowlton Strategies who have had the Olympics as client. I even talked to the former CFO of the London Olympics Neil Wood about my chances to get involved with the Games.

For the first time in my life, working for the Olympics did not sound like a dream anymore, and I can’t even describe what it means to feel like your dream is getting closer and closer to being a reality. It can’t be a coincidence. I don’t believe these people happened to be on my path just by chance. There’s something bigger going on here.

And now, now that my very hometown will be hosting the Games – along with Cortina, which I had planned to visit this summer with my cousin even before this (another coincidence?) – I truly believe that my place is there. That I have to somehow be a part of this.

I have to make this little Athens-2004-Tshirt-wearing little girl proud. Everything has fallen into place. Now I just have to go and get it.