I am the same age as the boys.
I was graduating/starting college when I really became obsessed with them. I had big plans for my life and not being able to afford college in the city of my dreams was such a low point for me. It kinda started my whole spiral and deep depression. But I had One Direction. I had just joined Tumblr so of course they were everywhere and it was so easy to get hooked and I ate it all up. I loved having something else in my life to focus on when in real life I genuinely felt like I had nothing. I had barely any friends, I was losing a connection with everyone I loved. I was just a shell of a person but I had these five boys I quickly fell in love with.
Through Tumblr and my 1D obsession I ventured and made my first round of online friends. Many of the friends I made, im still actually friends with like fairly close to. I met my soulmate through this obsession. I met someone who just got me, who was in the same dark space and we both kinda stayed in that dark space together until we were ready to leave it.
We shared so much together and grew so much together and with every step of the way we had the boys with us. They didn’t know we existed but they were a part of this. We all grew up together. Together we did things we always talked about and never really knew we’d pull off. She’d visit me home in LA and visit Disney, did a 1D concert here. I’d visit in NY (which surprise is where I had meant to go to college) and even did a 1D concert in Jersey. I even moved to NY then we moved to FL together working for the mouse.
17/18 year old me would have never imagined all I’d do. 16 year old me who was scarily depressed and su*c*dal would have never guessed I lived long enough to make some dreams come true and to be happy.
Yeah at some point along the way Zayn left and 1D did break up but they were still there. Everything they had done for us and everything we had done because of them was still there.
But life went on and I met my future husband. I got pregnant. We stopped being roomies and my soulmate started living her life (which I’m so insanely proud of her ) and I lived mine. She’s got such a bad ass career and now I’m a wife mom of two.
For a while now I’ve mourned my old life. Not because I don’t like my own life now, I adore my new little family , but because that phase of my life, the one that started with 1D, was the first and maybe only time in my life I lived for me. I did what I wanted. I learned to be unafraid. I could be selfish and it was okay, there was no guilt. For a while now it’s been over cause I now have a three year old. I’ve been aware. But yesterday, hearing that someone I was genuinely in love with (and yes I know he turned out to not be great and I mourn that too) is gone, forever, really solidified how far gone that phase of my life is. It’s gone gone. A memory I will cherish forever but that’s all it is now.
Grief is weird and complex.
It doesn’t help that the day before marks the 16th anniversary of my best friend passing. Meaning his presence in death is older than he was when he passed. That’s been an insane roller coaster of emotion.
I’m struggling. I know I’ll likely book an appointment with my therapist and write a mini novel in my diary to cope.
But Tumblr used to be my diary, my safe space. I used to lay it all out when I was having a lot of feelings and i definitely always had a lot of feelings.
I can’t believe how fast time has gone. I can’t believe he’s gone because this wasn’t supposed to happen for years and years. I think maybe I always knew a celebrity death would one day numb me like this just maybe not now.
I’m thankful to have people who are allowing me to grieve and move through these complex feelings.
I think I have a lot of tears left because they’ve been on and off since yesterday.
I just can’t believe this is real life and this really happened.
janainaart
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
germansingergirl
prguitarman
