Dear Taylor Swift, I <3 You Forever & Always
Today is an important day. Today (at technically 11pm central) Taylor Swift announces new music. I am a loud, proud, and unapologetic Swiftie. My heart — overflowing with joy and glitter — is exploding into bright, shiny pieces at this news. Taylor’s songs have sung me through some hard times. Like a best friend, her lyrics have comforted me, supported me, and told me what I’ve needed to hear.
For 10 of the last 13 years, our lives have run emotionally parallel. I’ve never met her. I’ve never even come close, but T Swift gets me. She gets me, and she understands every other average girl too. She created the anthem (many times over) for the every girl. Me today — and every earlier work-in-progress version of myself — is thankful for her. I am grateful for her music, and the permission she granted me to be awkward, clumsy, and clueless while I stumbled towards my own love story.
I remember hearing Tim McGraw for the first time as a freshman in high school. It was 2006 and I was barely grown out of my awkward phase. Tay marched in with her catchy, nostalgic lyrics and I was sold. By 14, it’s safe to say I had my share of crushes to pine over. In the dark of the night, listening to my boom box (that lit up to the beat of the music), I thought to myself “she understands.”
I experienced my first break up when I was 16. Rage was my predominate emotion. You better believe Picture to Burn was my jam. I literally burned photographs. That’s not weird, right? Teardrops On My Guitar and Tell Me Why rounded out the musical therapy sessions that filled the time between setting fire to things again. It was a really healthy process. 10/10 would recommend to a friend.
It wasn’t long before my next relationship (and breakup waiting to happen) entered stage right. He looked all shiny and new. He said all the right things. Let’s call him John. John and I went to a church event one night and I remember singing along to Our Song in a crowd of other kids that didn’t realize how much we didn’t know. As it turns out, our relationship was a dumpster fire, but in that moment, all I remember thinking was how Taylor Swift had created the perfect song just for us.
It had been about eight, maybe nine months (which is an eternity when you’re an infant) and graduation was rapidly approaching. Everyone was advising us to part ways. Stay Beautiful was what I listened to when I knew our breakup was looming. This story gets worse though. Two weeks before prom, I found out this dumpster-fire human I was dating made out with another girl. Naturally I cried my eyes out. I drove over to a friend’s house immediately, listening to Forever & Always on the way. This next part genuinely wasn’t my fault. It was, however, awful timing. A girl ran a stop sign and my tiny Toyota Scion was totaled — with me inside, still ugly crying and blasting T Swift.
Shamelessly, John and I kept dating. (Never do this ladies. If a man cheats on you, he doesn’t love you. Let him go.) We dated for far too long after that, though eventually, he broke up with me.
Fast forward to October of 2010. I’m 18 and decided to go out of state for school. Never Grow Up was perfectly timed. Taylor had just moved off to her own apartment in the city. She sang all the things I felt but didn’t talk about.
October, the month Speak Now was released, was coincidentally John’s birthday month. I was feeling all the feels. I missed John, although only God knows why. After approximately one million hours of Speak Now, Sparks Fly, Back to December, and Ours, I DROVE 12 HOURS ACROSS THE COUNTRY BACK TO TEXAS TO TALK TO JOHN. Accompanied by the BFF who I cried to about him cheating on me. Yes, we listened to Speak Now the entire way there. I mean, I can’t make this stuff up.
Naturally, we got back together, and I transferred to TCU. Almost exactly a year later, John took me to Taylor’s Speak Now concert. There, he got mad at me for wanting to hold my sign up and sing the whole time. So he had to go. No really - we broke up a week later.
I had a great college roommate at the time, and we loved TS together. Instead of burning things, we danced around our dorm room singing Long Live on repeat for hours. When my roommate decided to transfer, we both wrote lengthy letters to each other and signed off, “Live Fearlessly.” Because who doesn’t need that reminder? <3
“Hold on to spinning around - Confetti falls to the ground - May these memories break our fall”
A little while later, another boy entered my life. Naturally, this is when Red came out, an album all about fast and furious relationships, and that’s exactly what this was. I mean EVERY time Taylor had a new album, there was my life — running parallel to her perfectly crafted lyrics. Obviously, this one ended just as fast as it began.
On September 24th, 2013 I met Eric. Our relationship was different from the start. Looking back on it now, there’s not one Taylor song that mirrors that time period. Though bits and pieces of many of them apply. I realize now it was the first life phase that Taylor hadn’t really sung about yet.
I bought my tickets to the 1989 tour in October 2016, a year in advance — like a true fan. The DAY after we got engaged was the show. I went with my sister, but we didn’t even sit together. So I stood by myself scream-singing the whole time. I remember thinking how happy I was, but also how this was the first time Taylor didn’t live my life first. But then she got in her little flying basket and sang Love Story. She started talking about picking out a white dress, which I had just started shopping for that day. I absolutely lost it. I could cry even now remembering how happy I was.
There are other sweet T Swift memories I have stored away. They get brought back up again when I hear her old songs. One of my best friends walked down the aisle to Enchanted. I listen to Change now and think of the impact I want to have in my career. Our moms had breast cancer at the same time. Though she didn’t have a song about it, it was another connection I felt we had. When Eric and I moved into our first home a few weeks ago, we danced around our empty kitchen. It made me remember the line from All Too Well. “…We’re dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light…” Even though Taylor and I have entered different life phases, her songs never stop feeling close. We’ll overlap again, I’m sure.
Today, as a married woman, I still relate to Taylor, but differently than I did 13 years ago. Now she just feels like a close friend. Our lives don’t run parallel like they once did, but her songs will always be there. They just mean different things. Some people think it’s silly that at almost 27 I still love Taylor Swift. But here’s what those people don’t understand - Taylor Swift was the perfect soundtrack to my young life. I may not be as young anymore, but I am just as grateful. I can’t wait to experience this next chapter of Tay. I’ll be blasting her new jams and screaming out my love for her on Instagram. I mean the girl has her own filter and everything.
Taylor Swift, you taught me to be Fearless. Your music is the backdrop to my life and for that, I love you forever & always.