From a pretty early age, my mother realized that I was a little bit more gifted and talented than my own age group. So, she moved me over to play with the boys' travel soccer team when I was about 11 years old.
When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players.
My parents, they're the kind of people that didn't want me to get a big head, so they just kept challenging me and challenging me.
The minute you step off that podium is the minute you start preparing for the next world championship. That's kind of how I work. You celebrate for a brief moment, then you move on.
Soccer players generally burn through all of their carbohydrate stores by halftime, so how are you going to replace those? That's what we do at halftime.
I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good.
One thing I love to do when I'm working out is take my watch off, take my heart strap off, and just run - not for time, not for exertion, but just to get the blood flowing.
There are standards of the game that FIFA governs and promises to uphold.
I am not a politician by nature, but I will say I think there need to be more women in FIFA, and I would be open to having those conversations when the time is right.
I'm going to do anything I can do - whether that's being part of FIFA or creating some sort of movement that can actually impart real equality across all lines - in every country, every city, every sector all over the world, that's what I'm going to do.
Sometimes there has to be a goat on some level, and I'm totally fine with that being me.
It's a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb.
Considering retirement is like skirting with the reality of what's to come, and I think that's why so many athletes decide to do more introspection at that point.
This might sound masochistic or narcissistic, I don't know, but when I'm not playing the game, the validations I feel about life are always through the hardships. I relate more to sadness, in a lot of ways, when I'm not playing.
My nephew has type 1 diabetes, and it's my goal and hope that in his lifetime there will be a cure for diabetes. There's no place better to give the money to than the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
As professional soccer players, we take our bodies to the extreme. We're the people at the gym that look like we're breaking the machines. Pushing our bodies to the limits is what makes us so strong and capable and Olympians. It's not an easy thing to consistently do over and over again to your body.
You know me, I'm not that kind of person that cares to unveil all of my personal things to the world because frankly, in terms of my soccer, it doesn't matter.
Your heart can only take you so far - sometimes the physical body tells you otherwise.
When you're a pro athlete, life is very narcissistic - everything relates back to you and how you play. When you are getting out of pro sports, you suddenly have to get a little more mindful of what's going on around you and how you affect the rest of the world.
I think making the referee aware of a situation, there is nothing wrong with that.
