In defence of being a Taylor Swift fan girl.

I consider myself to be somebody with decent taste in music. I’m not saying I’m a music maven by any stretch of the imagination but on the whole I enjoy some damn good tunes.  I like approximately 80% of what they play on BBC6 Music so if that doesn’t make me ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ I don’t know what does.

Generally I like my melodies with a heavy side of melancholy: Bon Iver, Frightened Rabbit, The Smiths, The National, to name but a few. But I also have a massive place in my heart (and my headphones) for the tremendous tones of Taylor Swift. From her cutesy country beginnings to her pure pop perfection, her music simply makes me happy.

So-called cool kids claim to like Tay-Tay ironically but I am an unashamed Swiftie, with 2 t-shirts and a pair of Taylor Swift maracas to prove it. Is there such a thing as a guilty pleasure? Shouldn’t we just feel good about listening to music that we love?  Some of my favourite memories this year have involved dancing with reckless abandon to ‘Shake it off’.

Then there’s the debate about Swift as a woman; she’s too nice, she can’t hold on to a man, how dare she remove her music from Spotify. She’s a young woman whose whole life is playing out in the public eye, I think she does a pretty good job of holding her shit together. And with a celeb squad made up of some of the coolest ladies around, she’s obviously got something going for her.

For impressionable young girls, she’s a role model: a kind, goofy girl who talks about the importance of self-worth and sings songs about being hurt. She is the youngest woman ever to be included in the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Woman list. Yes, I am a Taylor Swift fan girl, and proud of it.

When did I become an adult and how do I go back in time?

Here's how I know I am technically an adult:

1. I consider kitchen roll and fabric softener to be essential shopping list items.
2. I never run out of toilet paper.
3. I make salad dressings from scratch, regularly.
4. I'm nearly 28.

Seriously though, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I made the idiot mistake of downloading Timehop and as well as reminding me of some horrendous haircuts, and highlighting my heinous love of posting cryptic song lyrics in times of intense heartbreak it has also made me feel old.

I remember heading off to uni like it was yesterday, my suitcase full to the brim with denim skirts, sequin boleros and all the beads Primark had to offer. Although 10 years have passed I still feel like that fresh faced 17 year old with the whole world stretched out in front of me!

But so much has changed: I've gone from Halls of Residence to homeowner, from nights out to 9-5. My peers are Doctors, Lawyers, Mothers, Fathers, Husbands and Wives. We have bills to pay and a seemingly endless stream of expensive weddings to attend.

Then there are the physical symptoms of ageing. In my drinking heyday I could knock back approximately 50 VKs and still get up for my 9am lecture. Today, a couple of glasses of wine on a Thursday night results in a gallon of full fat Coke and a bacon roll come Friday morning. Not forgetting the constant creaks and unidentifiable aches my body is now subject to.

How am I supposed to be an adult when I still feel like a child? I still phone my mum and dad whenever anything goes wrong, despite the fact that they live in another country the majority of the time.  Sometimes I just eat a bowl of tuna for dinner. And when somebody in the street tells their rambunctious child to watch out for the 'lady' I always assume there's another, older, more adult female beside me in an expensive dress who has her shit well and truly together.

When my Mum was my age she had a 2 year old child, I have a 2 year old crusty mascara that may or may not be past its best. That's basically the same yeah?

DOES everyone have a book in them?

Most weeknights when I'm home alone I lounge about on the couch watching Netflix and avoiding doing my washing up. Tonight I had settled down, jogging bottoms on in preparation to cry myself tired at the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy when it occurred to me to sit down and type this piece. Because I love to write, I love writing frivolous and self-indulgent posts with the intention of making people laugh. I love honest, descriptive story-telling that comes from the heart. But I am also lazy. I would love to write a book but I can barely gather the energy to write a text message to my Mum confirming I'll see her for lunch on Saturday, I'd love to be a supermodel but I can't put down the carbs.

I recently read Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham and it has given me impetus to start writing again. I know Lena Dunham is a bit of a Marmite character but I love pretty much everything that she does, and the fact that's she's BFFs with Taylor Swift is just the icing on the cake. The book is funny and frank, sassy and smart and completely relatable. I know I will be able to pick it up and read it over and over again. That's the kind of book I want to read and the kind of book I dream of writing.

But how do you even go about writing a book? My ancient laptop is currently running a demo version of Microsoft Word and I only have 11 more chances to use it before it will force me to enter a Product Key, a Product Key which I definitely disposed off with the box it came in 5 years ago. I'm fairly confident a book cannot be achieved in 11 sittings. And where will I find the time? In between work and the aforementioned lounging, I need to see my boyfriend, use my spiralizer and pretend to go to the gym. And what should I write about? As you may have gathered my real life isn't quite as glamorous as my Instagram profile might suggest, I'm not sure I could get much more than a chapter out of last weekend's dark and painful hangover.

Maybe I'll just stick to blogging...