Abby Wambach - Forward: A Memoir

Dear Abby,

Before there was soccer, championships, applause, jeers, heartbreak, shame: there you were, 4 years old.

Today I want to hold you and promise you this:

Dont try to earn your worthiness. Its your birthright.

Fear not failure. There is no such thing.

You will know real love. The journey will be long,

but youll find your way home.

You are so brave, little one. Im proud of you.

Love, Abby

There is no greater agony than bearing
an untold story inside you.
Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on the Road

CONTENTS

I have scored more professional soccer goals than anyone in the history of the game, 184 to be exact, but I never once witnessed the ball hit the net. Although my eyes were open and aimed in the right direction, as soon as leather met rope the picture went blacknot a slow fade, but a swift guillotine chop that separated the scene from my ability to see it.

My mind celebrated while my vision, blinded from adrenaline, lagged a beat behind, and by the time the two equalized there was a party on the field: high fives and hell yeahs , upraised arms and pumping legs and bouncing ponytails. I thrived on these brief blackouts, these zaps of instant amnesia. For thirty years scoring goals was my currency, the one skill I could barter for security and acceptance and love. Rarely did my frenetic brain pause long enough to consider what might come next, and how the shape of my life would look without soccer to fill it up.

Now its November 2015, two weeks after I announced my retirement, and my life is in no shape at all. President Obama recently called me and my teammates badass and I feel entirely unworthy of the term. I either sleep for 12-hour stretches or not at all, roaming the hallways of my hotel or impulse shopping online. The only time I break a sweat is when I hustle to the minibar. I am at my heaviest weight, my hibernation weight. I am cultivating Olympic-caliber love handles. ABBY WAMBACH HAS A SERIOUS BAKED GOODS ADDICTION , reports espn.com, and its a charge I cant deny. Room service delivers at least one basket of muffins per day. In an effort to carb-shame myself, I Instagram every one that touches my lips, accompanied by self-flagellating hashtags: #cantstop. #socialpressure. #onedayatatime.

It doesnt work. I remain unashamed. The muffins keep coming. I study old pictures of myselfAmerican flag draped over sculpted arms, face tipped up to the cheering crowdand marvel not only at my physique but at my expression; I look much happier than I was.

Theres a good chance that last nights mixed drinks amounted to a half bottle of vodka, chased by red wine and garnished with some Ambien. Five months ago, at the World Cup final, my wife Sarah and I made international news with a celebration kiss, and now she isnt speaking to me. Wed renovated a beautiful, sprawling house tucked in the hills outside of Portland, Oregon, and I cant even consider it home. Im thirty-five years old and had planned on being pregnant by now. My body feels like a foreign object and I am desperate to escape my own mind. My two prime dueling emotions are misery and terror. If my life were currently on the roster, I would force it to do suicide runs up and down the field. I would make my life ride the bench. I might even cut it from the team.

I argue with myself: Youve been here before. Youve had your heart broken. Youve been depressed. Youve been afraid. Youve faced change. And the unspoken response comes: This time is different. This time theres permanence. This time you dont have soccer waiting for you, and youll never have soccer again.

I have relinquished soccer, but it has not relinquished me. I am still an ambassador of the sport, called upon to extol its virtues and translate its language. Today Im scheduled to speak at a fundraiser for childrens programs. I am expected to be fun and upbeat and inspirational, qualities that, once upon a time, came naturally to me. When the driver picks me up I realize I dont even know where I am: it could be Milwaukee or Nashville or Houston. I stare out the window, watching the streetscape blur past, and think, These are kids; I dont want to lie.

I am a terrible liar.

The field house is dimly lit. A single spotlight aims its beam at my head as if to illuminate the mess within. This moment is the opposite of instant amnesia, that thrilling shot of adrenaline that temporarily blinds me; this is anti-adrenaline, and I can see the kids all too clearlyhundreds of sweet, earnest faces and compact bodies squirming in anticipation. They are lined up in neat rows, looking like shots Im bound to miss. The host introduces me with words that seem to apply to someone else: two-time Olympic gold medalist; FIFA World Player of the Year; winner of the Womens World Cup; record breaker; leader; legend.

I dont memorize speeches or even write them out, much to my mothers perennial dismay, but I have a rough chronology at the ready, a tour through my childhood and club career and time on the national team, a quick dip into challenges and triumphs, a hint at my future. But the kids dont want to hear a detailed exposition of my rsum. They want to know how they can be just like me when they grow up.

You need to make a plan, I tell them. You need to create your life.

Beneath these words a commentary begins scrolling through my brain, silent subtitles that negate everything I say aloud.

You cant even do that for yourself.

You have every opportunity to do what you want in life. The whole world is open to you if you are brave enough to explore it.

You are barely brave enough to leave your hotel room.

You have to be confident in your ability to do the right things, make the right choices.

You are incapable of living your own words. Its only a matter of time before youre exposed as the phony you are.

Believe in yourself and you can change the world!

They love me. I fold myself in half to give them high fives. They want to know theyll still have access to me, that my absence from the field doesnt mean Ill disappear altogether. I assure them, this time with conviction, that I am not going anywhere.

Today, my life still isnt what Id once imagined, but Im starting to appreciate the view. Soon after that event, I went for a runjust me gunning it uphill, feet batting against the road, fingers slicing the air, checking the data on my watch to ensure maximum effort, a twenty-year habit Ill never break. I considered it a great personal triumph when I posted a photo of a pristine, intact muffin with the hashtag: #enough isenough. Out of necessity, I took an extended break from the vodka. My body became familiar again and I waded, tentatively, back into my mind. For the first time in years it felt still and calm, and it whispered something I had never heard it say: I can make an impact off the field.

I let myself start to believe it.

In these pages I will share plenty of tales from the fieldones I have never told beforebut this is not, at its core, a book about soccer. Because no matter who you are or what youve done with your life, you recognize the feeling Ive described, that private, flailing terror that makes you wonder if youre lost for good. You have, at some point, been flattened and immobile and forced to find a way to reanimate yourself. Youve found yourself in the midst of transition, working up the nerve to release one rung and swing to the next, hoping to find some magic in the middle. You have been treated unfairly and unequally. You have been labeled, placed into ill-fitting boxes and told by others what you are and how to be. You have even labeled yourself, blunting your potential with your own words.