breathing clean, clean air

the thing about Taylor Swift is first of all, that she’s always gonna kind of fall for whatever lie the culture has cooked up about romance and sex and (to a lesser extent) womanhood. a mature, adult relationship will involve sex, and involve it fairly early on as a way to test chemistry? she’s gonna prove that she’s mature and adult. you’re not supposed to want love too much, supposed to be casual and cool and have some hook-ups in your twenties? she’s gonna throw herself into that. it’s responsible to move in together before marriage as a trial commitment that’s not actually committed? well, if everyone agrees it’s best practice, she’ll do that too. but the second thing about Taylor Swift is she never totally buys the lie. she has an iron core of romanticism and finely attuned moral instincts which means she’s never able to fully deceive herself into believing the lie, even as she’s doing her best to live it. she wants something more, and settling for something less feels wrong. and the third thing about Taylor Swift? she’s an incredibly good artist, so in service to making the best art possible, eventually, she always tells the truth. she won’t just put a happy face on and deliver the party line, at least not for very long. sooner or later, she writes a devastatingly specific song that says, “hey, I did that thing everyone said would make me happy. and it didn’t. it felt awful.”

Cinderella (2015) again being the only Disney live-action adaptation I respect. They really said “actually Cinderella goes to the ball to meet a guy and we’re not going to make a big deal out of it because there is nothing objectively wrong with that” and they were so right and it was beautiful and magical and makes me want to cry every time

It’s so funny to me that 1950 Cinderella wants to go to the ball because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event where she gets to wear a pretty dress and she desperately needs to get out from under her stepmother’s thumb, while 2015 Cinderella meets a nice boy from the palace named Kit in the forest one (1) time and she said “I HAVE too see that boy again.” So iconic of her

seeing this image in 2026 is like seeing an old friend who I've dearly missed

Best brain hack is taking “this too shall pass” and applying it in the micro. The panic you feel from an argument with a friend, wanting to get on your phone when you should be studying, the absolute obsession with someone you’re crushing on, pain from rejection, utter hopelessness at a situation that is not entirely hopeless. Heavy on situations that induce panic and incentivize you to act out of turn, maybe to send a text you shouldn’t be sending or to blow up at someone or whatever it is. The antidote to knee jerk reactions is literally just “this too shall pass” and allowing yourself to feel the physical manifestation of your extreme emotion. Literally just ride it out. Even for things that can’t immediately be resolved, it makes such a big difference and prevents you from reacting in ways that you would undoubtedly regret down the line.