You and tequila make me crazy

The number of times people have asked me “I don’t get it.. why do you love Taylor Swift so much?” is overwhelming. People find it hard to understand how an artist I’ve never met could make me so passionate. There are plenty of other artists I love, but there’s no one else I would go to bat for like I do Taylor, spend the hours pouring over their lyrics, listening to their music through the full spectrum of emotions I’ve felt from ages 11-24. I usually just shrug and say “She’s just an amazing lyricist” because it’s a type of feeling and love that’s hard to explain. It’s a question I’ve spent a long time thinking about and I think I’ve finally come up with a sufficient answer that encompasses why I feel the way I do. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like I feel emotions different than most people. I feel like I’m floating on the most vibrant, neon, technicolor highs and can sink to the deepest, darkest, blackest pits of my lows. There are a few people I’ve met along the way that feel as deeply as I do, but I think most exist in the gray. Everything feels cinematic. Poetic. Like each heartbreak could tear me apart and each late night drive through the city with my best friends had the power to heal my deepest wounds. Taylor’s normalized dramatizing your life. She expresses her emotions and tells her stories in an epic fashion, the only one in which I would want to be the soundtrack of my life. She’s shown that you can be soft and feel all of these feelings, but still be strong, independent and mature. There was a long time where I thought feeling emotions so deeply was a curse. I felt weak, and alone. But Taylor has proved time and time again that it’s actually my power, and it makes me stronger, and more whole.