Dear football, I fell in love with you many many years ago. As a young girl when football wasn’t meant for me, you captured my heart and soul.

I would spend countless hours watching you and my Cats, grabbing any opportunity I could to play you. Markers up and a few games with the boys here and there sustained me for a few years but I fell even deeper when I got to start playing you with the Darebin Falcons.

I fell in love with your combative nature and the ability to transform into someone on field that I wasn’t off the field. You helped me in some of my lowest of lows and the toughest things I have had to go through in life. You allowed me to grow in confidence and find an environment where I felt safe and comfortable to be truly who I was.

You tested me not once but twice to see how much I truly loved you and not having you for 12 long months only strengthened my overwhelming love for you. You gave me opportunities to meet so many incredible people and develop lifelong friends. You gave me so many incredible opportunities to play at the highest level in the most amazing clubs. Most of all you helped me to discover that I am enough, exactly as I am.

I can’t commit my body to you like I would like to and at the standard and expectation I feel you deserve. I don’t love you any less and it’s not about you.
Our relationship is going to look a little different now which makes me incredibly sad, but I am so excited for what the future holds. Thank you for everything you have given me. Football, I love you.