The year is 2006. I’m sixteen. I download Tim McGraw off limewire onto my blue iPod mini.
I get my first boyfriend. I feel warm and fuzzy inside listening to Our Song.
The year is 2009. My fifteen year old sister gets her heart broken. I sing Fifteen and think of her.
I make up a dance with my new coworkers at summer camp to You Belong With Me.
It’s 2010. I break up with my first boyfriend, in December. It’s messy. We get back together. I cry when I hear Back To December.
I feel happy when I hear Ours. People threw rocks at our relationship... (cause it shined!! But really it didn’t). We stay together.
It’s 2012. I am 22. It’s fall. Crunchy leaves. I dance and sing and know every word to every song off Red within 24 hours of release.
Our relationship deteriorates. It becomes toxic. It hurts all the time. I spend time in therapy. I grieve. The Last Time.
It’s 2015. Our relationship is over. I am partying. Tumultuous relationships. Flings. Binge drinking. I’m self destructing but I’m having fun. I black out at the 1989 World Tour. I am in a bad way. But 1989 plays on repeat in my new cars 6 disc changer.
I sing Wildest Dreams in my head as a kiss another tinder guy goodbye.
I learn hard lessons about love and loving myself. I beg for love from the wrong people. They all had songs tied to them. I wish you would. I almost do. Better man.
I see the 1989 world tour video and know I don’t remember any of it. I cry. A lot. I realize what horrible regrettable things I’ve done.
It’s 2017. I am 27. I am six months into a relationship.
He is the one. The King of My Heart. My New Years Day.
I know it’s Delicate. I try not to fuck it up.
I spend 2018 on self improvement. I straighten out my drinking problem. I lose weight. I exercise. I save money. I am in a loving stable relationship.
I attend rep tour. I remember the whole thing.
I am doing better than I ever was.
Last Saturday I turned 29.
I’ve been the archer and the prey.
I am moving into a new place with my Lover. We bought our own place. I have loved him for three summers now. I want them all.
Time for a follow up for this one....
The day Lover dropped was the day I moved out of my parents house. I will never forget driving away out of town, listening to Cornelia Street, crying my eyes out.
Painting my new living room listening to Lover.
Driving through my new rural neighborhood looking out over the cranberry bogs singing along to I Think He Knows.
Listening to Cruel Summer in the parking lot before I walked into my first AA meeting because I was terrified and trying to be upbeat and not cry.
Decorating for my first Christmas here and thinking I could leave the lights up til January.
Playing Christmas Tree Farm when I invited everyone over for hot chocolate and to go look at Christmas lights.
Watching the Miss Americana Documentary in my living room with a big blanket.
Staring at the glitter of my new engagement ring listening to Daylight, because this love is truly golden.
Breaking down and crying ugly, terrified, anxious tears during the One World Together At Home Concert when I heard the opening notes of Soon You’ll Get Better.
It was a hell of a fucking year, to grow, change, mature. I will be 30 in two weeks, and I feel so lucky to be so close to Taylor’s own age, because as we both grow, and become more reflective and self aware, her music touches my soul in the deepest way. She really has a way of being a mirrorball to reflect back what I’m feeling too.
In your twenties you grow, some people faster and some slower. Being on the brink of this decade I know this is when the big stuff is going to happen. Marriage, kids, whatever. I know who I am now, but I also know that you can change who you are as you grow. Here’s to 30, and folklore.
