*this was written almost 2 years ago, but why let content go to waste? A few details have been updated*
It’s funny how interests come and go, you can be obsessed with something one minute, and drop it like a hotcake the next. Girlies, if you know then you know - hyper fixation.
They’re my best and worst vice, it can be so fun immersing yourself in a new interest; tv, film, hobby, actor, musician. It can also be a bit emotionally draining, extremely expensive and make you feel like a kid (that’s positive and negative in equal measures). But at thirty-one, it seems it’s a personality trait rather than a passing phase at this point.
As a kid I loved football, I don’t know what it was about it, maybe it was more the idea of it and fitting in with the other kids, maybe it was a bit of wanting to fit in with the other side of my family, to have my other parent love me as much as my primary one does. I loved getting my new England shirts - sometimes the full kit if said former parent was willing to shell out for it - playing in the garden with my friends (I was never destined to be a goalie by the way, and just as a side-note, don’t ever play football with a basketball, and definitely don’t let your kids do it!) and filling up my sticker books with rare shinies that I’d traded on the playground.
But one thing I didn’t care for? Watching it. It took me until I was only just pre-teen to actually not find myself bored rigid watching it, and funnily enough, fast forward eighteen years, and I’ve got myself a Sky Sports subscription so I can watch a tonne of matches whenever I want to. Times change, but some interests apparently don’t.
Watching the Euros and World Cup has always been something we immerse ourselves in in our household, it’s the only time we’re truly patriotic and we watch matches wherever we are in the world - no holiday will interrupt our match viewing. But Euro 2020 was different - we all felt it, the buzz, the headlines, the heart thumping agony at we pushed further on in the tournament, the tears and anguish at the final - for me it was all consuming.
Usually my interests wain after a while, a TV show loses a little bit of it’s shine when the current series ends, you’re waiting for the next series but in the meantime you find something else to love. An actor loses their shine in favour of another, and the cycle starts all over again. The thing with football is, it’s seemingly never ending. The high of the Euro’s left me reeling for a solid month, and then the season starts again and it’s all Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup….there’s at least a game every week, not to mention the international breaks. The passion and intensity doesn’t have time to fade, it’s always there to remind you and pester and prod and poke you.
That’s not to mention making a best friend out of an old friend through our Euro’s obsession four (!) years ago. We talk almost daily, chat utter nonsense, and rib each other for supporting different club teams (but with all the love in the world - promise!). Having someone to share the interest with you really helps keep it alive too.
In the past 3.5 years I’ve purchased a few Manchester City memberships, far too many City football shirts, countless games (RIP my bank balance) been glued to my telly or my phone every weekend (and some week nights), and overall spent too much money, but I’ve loved every second of it (yes - even the agonising seconds).
If there’s one piece of advice I’d like to impart on you guys is, embrace your interests. Don’t let others make you feel small for them, don’t let your interests make you feel silly or obsessive, love things ardently because how fun is it to really enjoy something? Find your best friends through your interests, make crazy and spontaneous decisions to travel for them (even if you feel anxious as heck for it). Just love everything, and if they’re being used as an escape for you, then love your hobbies just that bit more.
S xo
S xo
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