i just remembered how much i used to love the uswnt and the woso fandom, and it’s kinda crazy how the tiny interest i gleamed from watching the 2015 wwc unfold on tumblr shaped my life, my interests, and my identity. woso was a huge part of me learning about and understanding my sexuality. i discovered a love for the sport that now extends way past just that damn team. fanfic was part of the reason i became a writer as an adult. i’m not even fuckin american, and my brain is still filled to the brim with uswnt trivia. sometimes i think it’s crazy how much these random athletes from a foreign country in a sport i didn’t care about have affected me. affected me to a point where i’ve stayed up at all hours of the night to watch their games and read fictionalized stories about their lives. sometimes i completely forget that i even had such an interest in them until i’m reminded by the damnedest things, and it all comes flooding back. like, i have a blog named after jill fucking ellis. i remember when alex morgan used to be called baby horse, and when krashlyn was just a fan ship. my favorite shirt in high school used to be a tobin heath jersey. eight years and six phones later, my passcode is still 46737656 because it spells out “hope solo”. yet now i live my life barely ever thinking about the people that made it what it is. it’s crazy to think that this year’s wwc is probably going to be the last tournament for a lot of the players i first saw on my tumblr dashboard in 2015. part of me wants to get back into the sport so i don’t miss out on it all. part of me feels like id rather go back to forgetting it all instead of witnessing the end of an era that’ll inevitably break my own heart. i can’t believe i’d nearly forgotten all about all this.
