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I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday when Taylor Swift announced it’s been 10 years since she released her first album.
How on earth has it been a decade?
I know Taylor has gone from beloved to hated to beloved to hated so many times, it might not be popular to commemorate this day, but Taylor occupies a very special place in my heart. So I wrote her this totally dorky fan-mail thanking her for getting me through the emotional madness that is middle school and high school romance. (I changed names below to pretend I keep some degree of privacy in my life).
Note: If you aren’t a hardcore Taylor Swift fan, half of what I say below won’t make sense 🙂
To Taylor:
Thank you. Thank you for singing break up songs even when people hated you for it. Thank you for singing love songs even when people didn’t get it. Thanks for being Fearless.
When I first heard your music in 2006, I was a super awkward 12-year-old with a giant sized crush on Drew. He was so funny and he couldn’t see the kind of flawless I thought we could be. I can still see him kissing that girl he talked about at a baseball field in front of me. And Jack? To him, I was invisible. He couldn’t see me wanting him the way he wanted her.
And you understood that, Taylor.
Then, oh then, I met Mike. The boy on the football team. I was fourteen, but close enough. And when you’re fifteen, and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gunna believe them. At first, I had to convince him that he belonged with me. I saw sparks fly whenever he smiled. Those stupid beautiful eyes. I knew with him, I’d dance in the rain in my best dress. Our song was the slamming screen door, but loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street. He was trouble. He should’ve said no. And he said he was sorry with that face of an angel. But I didn’t want to hurt anymore. Even though we had a beautiful, magic love there. No more forever and always — we were never, ever, ever getting back together.
So there went the story of us.
It took me everything not to call him — and every time I didn’t — I almost did. I went back to December all the time. And like a lot of girls after a breakup, I listened to your CDs on repeat. I ate ice cream and sobbed. Even though others tried to convince me “that music” was just making it worse, it felt so great to know someone else understood what I felt: That all love does is break and burn and end.
And then, on a Wednesday, in a cafe, I watched it begin again. I met Casey. For the first time, what was past, was past. He made my wildest dreams come true.
The whole place was dressed to the nines and we were dancing like we were made of starlight. He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring. He said we could get married — and we did — at 22 and 23.
And the haters hated.
And we shook it off.
