End of an Era.

This seemed like an apt first post.

I am guessing that anyone reading this would have seen that this week Zayn Malik quit the boyband he had been a part of for the past five years.

Now although this prompted what the Metro tackily called the "sound of teenage hearts shattering", I don't think this is the case. As a teenage girl who in the past would have called herself a "Directioner" and now calls herself a fan, I can say that my heart was shattered but not for the reasons that Andrei Harmsworth of the Metro will have assumed.

 I felt teary but it was not because one of the key members of the worlds biggest boyband has left, it was due to the fact that I have spent the last five years dedicated to these five boys. I woke up at 3 am to go to their first signing for their first single, I went to Birmingham from London to watch their tour when it sold out, I bribed family friends to get me in to their gig at the Roundhouse and I ran around central London looking for them as they filmed their video for "One Thing". So this felt like a sign from the universe that as I approach my 18th birthday that perhaps enough was enough.

This is not the first end of an era that I have experienced, in 2011 the last ever Harry Potter film was released and at the age of 13 that was the end of my childhood. I loved and still love the Harry Potter franchise but it has never been as manically as I did when I was 9 and reading one of the books on publication day on a ferry to the Isle of Wight. This is what I hope will happen to the One Direction part of my life. I will look back on it with fondness and realise that although I may have spent a ridiculous amount of money on essentially five teenage boys, this part of my life helped me to make me in to the person I am today and has given me many amazing memories, whether I met them or not.

So whilst I am slightly heartbroken, it is not for the resignation of Zayn Malik who I believe has probably made the right decision for himself which I think is important for everyone to do, it is for my teenage years and the fact that from now on I shall have to be an adult.

I will continue to support Liam, Louis, Niall and Harry but it will never be the same and that is almost a relief as I will never have to wake up at 4am to stand outside the Band Aid studio in the freezing cold again.

November 2011