Goodbye.

I’ve been wracking my brains for months trying to do this properly.

Tumblr has always been a place for me to escape, from the very day I set up my account in May 2010.

The years between 18 and 24 have been the most challenging for me, but also the most enlightening. Tumblr was a huge part of my young adult life. I loved our initial tiny club of United supporters, and I can’t believe how much the group has expanded over the years. I loved the 2010 World Cup, fanfiction aka the Airplane Home (ICONIC), the liveblogging, editing, the rivalries, the bromance wars (Sernando v Gerlonso etc), watching matches together, educating each other, sleep-deprived conversations at 3am, follow forevers, accent challenges and selfie Fridays.

I remember when Wayne Rooney first set up his Twitter account and signed off every tweet with “xoxo” and we all started changing our URLs to “xoxogossip[insertfootballerhere]” in his honour. When David (ikersstrongsperm at the time #iconic) used to make silly videos and we’d all gif them and use them as reaction gifs. When, “BITCH, I AIN’T CRYING. MY EYES ARE SWEATING,” was a daily quote. When Gerard Piqué got drunk at the WC2010 celebrations and fell over on the stage. When Mock the Week made fun of the England and Arsenal teams and we used to watch the videos over and over again and cry. When Yoann Gourcuff was a thing. When you’d get messages from “footballer” anons and you’d play along, pretending you were chatting with Thomas Muller. When a gif surfaced of Didier Drogba and John Terry dancing with a scarf and it made me question everything in life. When Eric Abidal was the king of everything, no questions asked. When United were actually good and didn’t make me want to pull out my eyeballs on a weekly basis.

There was a time when I couldn’t bear to be away from this place. Tumblr was my go-to place when I needed to feel better about my life. Tumblr is full of people who know exactly what to say, people who remind you that you matter, and that’s so important for a young adult to hear.

It took a while, but I feel I’m finally at a point in my life where I can make myself happy, where I can remind myself that I matter. I think I can say that this website has served its purpose. I’m not going to delete; there are so many posts in my archive that I love too much to part with. I might return one day, but I hope I never need Tumblr in the same way I did back in 2010–2013.

So, yeah.

To the incredible number of friends – some undoubtedly lifelong – I’ve made here: thank you. You helped a somewhat unhappy, stressed-out, introverted young girl find her place. It recently occurred to me that, for a while now, the reason I’ve been hanging on to Tumblr is not for the website itself – it’s for the people I’ve come to love. I’ve never been very good at goodbyes, so I guess I was trying to put it off.

And to the friends I never got to meet, all 7,000+ of you, thank you for sticking around, whether you’ve followed me for a week or the six years I’ve been on this site. I’m amazed you’re still here.

It’s been emotional.

Goodbye,

Chels. ♥

P.S. If we’ve only ever communicated through Tumblr and you’d like to keep in contact, my Instagram is ispychelsi. Message me here if you want to be friends on Facebook and I’ll send you the link!

P.P.S. No, you cannot have the michaelcarrick URL. Mine. ALL MINE. (I’m still waiting for the day Carrick attempts to make his own official Tumblr account only to discover the michaelcarrick URL has already been taken so he checks out my blog and contacts me and we become best friends goodbye.)

Michael Carrick’s Testimonial

Admittedly, it’s been a while. A year and-a-half since I was last here. Is Tumblr still a thing? Are my friends/the people I follow still around? Idk.

Anyway, something’s been gnawing away at me for a little while, this need to write something, anything football-related. I’ve needed an outlet, I think. I held it off for a while but now I think I’ve got the right opportunity, following Michael Carrick’s testimonial.

So that’s what I’m going to talk about. I’m pretty sure this post is gonna be long so bear with me!

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