Longest T. Swift Sidebar

As a recent Taylor Swift converter (is that the word?), I’ve spent my senior summer listening to as many of her songs as humanly possible, even getting sick just to make myself sit still long enough to watch her “folklore: long pond” sessions on Disney+. My fandom knows no boundaries, clearly. While my friends were, initially, shocked upon hearing my late movement into Team Taylor, they’ve been nothing but supportive ever since, offering recommendations after recommendations and even going so far as to force me to listen to three entire albums with no bathroom break (thank you, dear friend; you know who you are).

Yet my very favorite album of her’s is still Swift’s version of “Red”, not because of the high number of songs marked Explicit, not because of her empowering, forceful emotions, but rather, because it was the album that made me fall in love with her music. Every time I hit play, I remember sitting in English class Friday morning, late autumn leaves blowing by the window as I watched in confusion while the other girls in my first hour explained why they were crying, why Swift was re-recording her songs, and why her ten minute version of the hit, “All Too Well” was too much for an eight am lesson. I remember stitching away in sewing class, spilling tea with my teacher as the leading senior that day, soaking up every last second of my high school career as spring showers threatened to cascade its tears at any moment. I remember standing in front of the field, September sun beating down mercilessly in its mid-afternoon prime time, reminding me that time was short as I plowed on ahead, waving to the football coaches and players as I went speeding by. This album isn’t just what gets my heart pumping before a long run, nor a passenger in my Accord, making conversation as I ponder and think, but a reminder of what’s real, what’s now, and what’s mine.

Life is hard, life can hurt, and life can downright suck; any religion, pastor, or person who tries telling you otherwise is spewing total bull, and they know it. Every religion has preached that they have found the key to end all of life’s suffering, but no one has that treasure map. Many have lost their lives to such a cause, but what if we, instead of trying to avoid suffering, merely recognized that it’s a part of a normal, healthy life, and that it’s okay to suffer? It’s okay to hurt; it’s just not okay to live our lives from bitterness built up because of unattended pain and sorrow from ever yearning silence. Maybe that’s what Swift meant when she sings, “Losing him was blue like I’ve never known / Missing him was dark, gray, all alone / Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you’ve never met / But loving him was red.” If we live our whole lives denying the blue, dark, and gray, we’ll never get to the red, or even, later on, the golden, the green, and the good. Bittersweet memories aren’t all sour, nor are they all sugar. Both constitute life, so may we lean into the present, may we remember all too well, for if we merely numb ourselves, we may never create that great piece of artwork. We may never make connections and help another human being in their hurting. And, worse of all, we may not be able to say “All too well,” for we may have gone by so fast that we don’t remember it at all.