If you have kept up with my column over the last few years, you will know that I am a Ravens fan. If this is your first time reading, well, now you know. I call them my team. So you can assume that I am a happy camper right now because — duh da duh daaaaaa — the Ravens are in the Super Bowl.

I haven’t always been a Ravens fan. Before I was a Ravens fan, I wasn’t a fan of anybody at all. I didn’t care about professional football or who was playing. I only paid attention to the Super Bowl and watched it because my mom would make up fun bingo-type games. If you didn’t watch the game, you couldn’t get the prizes, so you watched the game (now I think she made up these games so my dad and brothers could actually watch the game without little kids distracting).

Moral of that random tangent: Since I’ve actually cared about the happenings in the NFL, the Ravens have been my team. I’m not a bandwagon fan; I’m just a new fan. The entire time I’ve been a fan, the Ravens make it to the playoffs, several times to the conference championships, and then BAM, we lose in a heartbreaking, dream-shattering, maybe-next-year way.

But not this year. This year we’ve made it past the hindering playoffs to the big game. THE game.

It’s been difficult for me to wrap my head around our success. I’ve been so used to the disappointing losses that success is a new feeling for me, and it’s a good one that I’m not complaining about.

With the Ravens making it to the Super Bowl, I’ve come to realize that I knew a lot of 49ers fans I didn’t remember I had or I forgot about. Friends who, for a 2-3-week period, have magically stopped being my friend. Typical, I guess, of any rivalry.

As in The Signpost’s Viewpoint earlier this week, there is a lot of talk about the sibling rivalry that’s going to happen, the Ray Lewis situation, the Flacco-vs.-Kaepernick stats, the commercials and halftime performances. Those things are all what makes the Super Bowl interesting.

This year, with a team I actually know and love, this game is going to be amazeballs. It’s going to be the first Super Bowl I watch because I care and not because my mom has awesome prizes I could win. This year, I am going to be thanking my mother for those rinky-dink games that make all the younger kids and adults who don’t give a flying fart in space about that game pipe down so I can actually watch it.

My brother got married a few weeks ago. This year, the Super Bowl party is at his house. Luckily, he has two big-screen TVs. One will be the designated “watch the game, chit-chat and have a good time” TV, and the other will be “let’s watch the game, get angry at crap calls and cheer for good plays” TV.

I am excited for the Super Bowl for all the typical reasons of any sports fan and non-sports fan, but also because THE RAVENS ARE FINALLY PLAYING IN IT.