Why I love Taylor

It’s The Tortured Poets Department release day (well last night) so I listened to the whole thing last night and went to bed only to wake up and see that the 16 songs I listened to before bed were not enough. She released a 31 song album after I went to bed. Okay, she’s prolific as hell but I realized why I really love her last night - and maybe why so many others do… besides the obvious facts.

TTPD is definitely a break-up album and it’s a brutal one. With lines like

So I did my best to lay to rest
All of the bodies that have ever been on my body
And in my mind, they sink into the swamp
Is that a bad thing to say in a song?

—

I wish I could unrecall
How we almost had it all

—

A con man sells a fool a "get love quick" scheme

—

Oh, what a valiant roar
What a bland goodbye
The coward claimed he was a lion
I'm combing through the braids of lies
I'll never leave, never mind
Our field of dreams engulfed in fire
Your arson's match, your somber eyes

—

You said I needed a brave man
Then proceeded to play him
Until I believed it too

—

And I don't even want you back, I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal

Right? But, I think what I love is that Taylor rides a fine line that has bothered me since High School youth group days when our youth pastor would tell us to never ever have sex before getting married (let’s not talk about that whole stupid rule right now) and then tell us that he had sex with his (now) wife and, if you did have sex, you’ll be great. Wait, so it doesn’t matter if I don’t.

The human dilemma of making mistakes, regrets, and carrying pain, and also knowing that we’ll be fine and, potentially, even better from our mistakes is a great one.

Taylor Swift rides the line of it all so poetically and beautifully. She always tells the stories and she never backs down from the pain, the history, and the what-she-wishes-she-could-take-backs. But she also never acts as though she’s done - she will be back and better.

And so many of us struggle with this. We don’t talk about our old stories and admit they were mistakes, regrets, or we wish we could change the past - because we think that will affect our future potential. Or we don’t admit our future potential because we think that will somehow act as though we wipe the mistakes and we don’t want to do that.

But, it’s both. And she’s soooo good at it. The relationship had amazing moments and terrible, she sad and angry and wants revenge but also forgiveness and to move on. She poetically dives into it all.

And we can to. And so we sing those lyrics and we know it’s okay to acknowledge our regrets (which science is proving is actually incredibly important) and to acknowledge we were fooled, we were stupid, and it was fun, but we wish we could change it AND we’re going to rock and it’s going to be better than ever.

This happens once every few lifetimes
These chemicals hit me like white wine
What if I told you I'm back?