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Taylor Swift fandom did not catch me as early as it did the person I used to talk about Taylor Swift with a lot. The person I have in mind collected all her physical CDs from the very first.
Recently, I have not heard much from that person. It kind of hurts that she doesn't really know much about what's going on with my life anymore. I know she's been going through burnout and fatigue, but it has been a thought process over the past couple of weeks to realize that even though she has kind of removed herself from my everyday sphere of thought that there's a part of my heart that is hurting for her absence.
It's not that I don't care about her, and I believe that she probably thinks she cares about me. I just think that she has this very immediate-local-reality locus of attention these days for herself. I know that a couple of years ago, she was a bit more online again, and it burnt her. But she and I met online, and it's like she used to understand my way of life and that my relationships are, by necessity, fairly online-focused.
A couple years ago, during that getting-burnt part, she thanked me for being there for her and indicated that had it not been for me that she might have been much worse off or in real danger due to the fallout of that situation. But then, as she cocooned away to try and begin the process of healing, she just pretty much vanished from my life.
She pops in every now and then, and for a while, I left her breadcrumbs or dead bird offerings, like a cat, hoping that when she bothered to check her discord notifications that she would respond to my thoughts toward her or care to show her things she liked. Sometimes, it worked.
For the most part, however, she would come in with whatever new thing she wanted to say with little or no acknowledgment of the backlog of links. And I get that the longer she was away, the more daunting 10 or 12 links might become, over the course of weeks and months. However, something kind of punched me in the chest a little.
I told her about Charlie's passing. It was just a small message. I thought she might notice or care, as her pets and stress over her aging dog has sometimes been a reason for her long-term absence or stated inability to have deep conversations. I know that, in the past, she has told me about how she only has "meme sharing" energy for people. And, to some degree, I can relate and sympathize with that. I try really, really hard to just keep telling myself that this is such a time for her and that she is dealing with what might be some kind of chronic fatigue disorder.
I try my best to reason with my emotions. But she didn't even notice the message. When I asked her if she'd seen it, she even excused it as having gotten lost in the shuffle of my sending her other relevant-to-her links. So, I told her something to the effect of, "Well, if they're too much for you to go through at this time, I'll stop sending so many."
This was two-pronged in a way. On the one hand, I mean it for both our sakes. If my efforts are not any kind of comfort to her and are just some kind of thing to maybe or maybe not bother with when she has 15 minutes of energy for interacting with me, quarterly at best it seems, then I don't think I should curate anything for her with the thought that it will be well-received or that I should give her some hypothetical social obligation to fulfill or not. On the other hand, I was really hurt that she doesn't even look at my messages closely enough, before sending one of her quarterly messages, to see if I have left a comment there about anything major in my life. Even something like losing a pet when, as I said, she has more than once put a pin in everything in her life in a very vocal and clear boundary-setting way about dealing with her pets.
When I said this, she said something like, "Do whatever's best for you."
I don't think it can be much more clear that there is a kind of dismissal of my importance and feelings there. At least, I have to assume there is.
If our relationship is ever solid enough again for me to send her this post to read, I hope that she doesn't feel angry or slighted by the fact that I am talking about her in vague terms to my online journal that's really only read by a handful of acquaintances. Because it's not like I can talk about it with her with the expectation that I will be heard anytime soon.
I kind of anticipate that she'll reach out in a few days when she's had time to listen to and digest the Taylor Swift album. That's one of "our things" together. It's a shared interest we know we have with each other even when other people in our lives don't share it.
But what counts as "in each other's lives"?
I get that people, especially married people and people with "professional" faces on their careers, have this tendency to compartmentalize and only come back to certain aspects of their lives when they have the time and emotional space for it. I do the same thing... to a degree. But I can't help but feel like I've been through two or three deep crises since she kind of dropped out of regular circulation in my life. And sure, maybe it's because her own crisis of energy and deep burnout is somehow so much worse than I understand.
But friendship is a two way street.
There have been times when she's been very good and receptive and patient with me, but I feel like she doesn't even know me anymore functionally. We talked a little last summer when I was briefly trying my luck on dating apps in Japan. We talked a little then, and it felt like things were going somewhat back to a place where she was someone I could share with emotionally. Then, she just left again. I never know why.
A few months ago, she popped in to talk to me about a certain other emotional situation for which I knew a fair amount of the context. But I guess that's what gets to me. That I know the emotional context to a lot of her stories and circumstances, but at some point, she just put up walls and said (through actions of not words) that her boundary is that if you share very much about yourself she's going to have to step away and take a breather for a completely indeterminate amount of time which seems to only get longer with each passing month and year.
I've known this person since my late teens. Longer than the person I call my best friend whom I talk to 99% of the days of my life. But she and I used to be very close, too. She was actually the reason I got my passport in the first place, even though our then-plans fell through.
And I dunno... Taylor Swift having an album again, particularly a happy album, brings all this stuff up to the surface.
I had actually only really been thinking about the album release off and on for the past week. I wasn't waiting with bated breath. But I remembered to check this morning on my way to work, and the release count down let me know that by the time I got out of work, it would be released.
While I ate dinner, I listened to it. And I am an extremely change-averse person. It takes me time to adjust to something if it is similar but different to something I am used to. So it's weird in that even if I like something, it might take me a while to warm up to it.
I've got mixed feelings about Taylor's albums that tell stories that are so perfect and highly-specific that they cannot be really extracted from knowing stuff about her personal narrative. I prefer the ones I can instantly dissociate and slap blorbo tags on.
I am happy for Taylor Swift as the kind of poet laureate of Basic Millennial White Women that she seems to be finding what seems to be some kind of happiness. In a conversation with the friend that this post turned out to mostly be about, she talked about how she assumed that Taylor Swift would marry her current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, not because he was the most interesting boyfriend she's ever had or the best man or any of that. That it doesn't really matter. That there's a lot about heterosexual settling down that has only a little to do with love and a lot more to do with finding a person you can get along with socially and sexually who's at the same spot where you are in that journey.
Taylor's wanted to get married since she released that "Lover" song back in 2019 which was essentially designed to be a catch-all wedding song that could be timeless and related to any decade for the past 50 years or more. Then, in the Midnights album, she has a song where she swaggers about how she doesn't care about the "1950s shit they want from me," and how "the only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife."
Midnights came from a moment in time where I think she still thought Joe Alwyn was going to be her forever man but was restless enough to be reflecting on all the breakups and heartbreaks and stuff that "kept her up at night."
Then, she comes the "Eras Tour era" where she -- I think, because I refuse to actually follow celebrity gossip publications because I prefer blorbos and sanity -- probably went into it thinking that she and Joe would eventually get back together. He just couldn't handle being with her when she needed to by all shiny and center of attention. Then, she realized it was actually over, immediately went into a rebound relationship with Matty Healy whom she'd known but whom she'd previously known was too fucked up, addicted, and flaky to be a long-term thing, convinced herself he was her soulmate actually, and then crashed and burned in just a few months. TTPD came out of that, both of them, and it's got a LOT of thoughtful artistry in it.
Of course, it had the benefit of having a long production cycle because of everything else she was juggling during the time it was taking shape.
Coming to this new album, Life of a Showgirl, I just can't help feeling that there's something less substantive about it.
Again, per my friend whom I can't bring myself to reach out and talk about this with, Taylor has a pretty weak sense of stable self. There are things she's about and fully incorporated, but in other ways, she molds herself to fit hr current romantic partner or the persona she has crafted to survive to breakup. And now that she's engaged with an announcement about "your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married," the whole vibe of the album is that she is in much better spirits but it makes the poetry itself more childish.
All that said, there are parts of the album I find passable and meh but other parts I enjoy. Some might grow on me more later. But I just feel like it did not hit me as hard as the last one did, and I don't know if it's just that her happy-era music isn't as deep as her sad and mad-era songs or if it's just a mismatch of my vibe surrounding the whole thing.
Here's my track by track brief impressions of this one:
1. The Fate of Ophelia - Feels the most egregious in terms of her sort of weird regression to fit into the "I am the English teacher and my boyfriend is the football coach uwu" thing in that the comparison is just... extremely high school English. And I am a high school English teacher. It's cute but weak and I don't really understand why it's the album opener unless it was to do the most meh song first so you'd be more and more drawn in.
2. Elizabeth Taylor - It kind of reminds me a bit of when she was trying to do more hiphop edge on the Reputation album but that album has grown on me over time and I do think I like this song? Like it's at least more clever in lyrical construction and kinda fun and a little more overwrought in a way that feels like the listener might be able to do something with it emotionally.
3. Opalite - I think I like this one. I definitely loved the opal color of her Eras-tour opener leotard thing and therefore I'll always like the idea of her and opal. It seems sweet but kind of "mid" to me, though.
4. Father Figure - One of the more narrative songs where she's messing with gender by singing from the perspective of a male character she's created. I kind of wondered if this was commentary on the culture of the whole Diddy (and likely Kanye-affiliated) culture of casting couch sex-for-fame that seems to be part of the aspects of "Hollywood" that she's been around but refused to be a part of.
Taylor is part of the parasite class as a billionaire. (Billionaires should not exist no matter how much I like her. I know she's charitable, but she should be even more charitable until she's no longer a billionaire over and over again to have an ethical standing in that regard.) But I say that to say that I'm pretty sure one reason Kanye has been obsessed with her for years is that she refused to be a part of something that was offered to her in that regard.
On the other hand, it reminded me of Lana Del Rey's first album and just the character fantasy stuff that was supposedly going on in folklore, even if you can look back and suggest that was a lot less fictional in some ways than she said at the time.
5. Eldest Daughter - I do like this one. It feels more relatable to the general listener like it might actually be for her audience as well as telling her own story. Like it's a love story for her and her current guy, but it isn't so hyper specific? I feel like this one is better than some of the others. "When I said I don't believe in marriage, that was a lie" goes to my earlier point about Taylor's actual emotional journey as she's written about it. Trying for years to make herself what she needed to be to make it work with Joe.
6. Ruin the Friendship - At first when it went back into the high school imagery, I thought it was going more with that teacher metaphor she keeps using for Kelce and herself. Listening all the way through did kind of catch me off guard. I liked it. Messier than some of the others. Sweet and sad. Doesn't go out of the way to try and make the narrator look either badass or pure in motive.
7. Actually Romantic - I was actually into this one enough to look up the genius notes to see who this might be about. Apparently, it's about Charli XCX. I remember back when the Era's Tour was happening, I saw some chatter on tumblr or twitter (if I still went there back then) about how Charli was "throwing shade" at Taylor for her limited releases of vinyls that are special editions of albums with bonus tracks (that she ultimately releases on spotify anyway) as though this was Taylor's most egregious environmental crime (lol??? again I'm not painting Taylor as a #notallbillionaires -- she should stop it with her careless jet fuel use). Then, there was a mixed message about how Charli thought that one of them was specifically timed to maliciously put down her new album on the UK charts? I remember having a pause to wonder if Taylor was in fact that insecure.
Then, I learned there was context I was then missing because I only ever get this stuff from some indirect means rather than keeping up with celebrity news on purpose. Apparently there is this song that Charlie XCX released called "Sympathy is a knife" which is about Taylor Swift, because when Taylor Swift was briefly dating Matty Healy, they were moving in the same social circle because Charli's boyfriend is one of Matty's The 1975 bandmates, and Charli was unspeakably insecure and jealous.
I know I might be being a bit of a hypocrite about this, because I still like Olivia Rodrigo in spite of the fact that her vent-writing about Sabrina Carpenter kind of made the latter's life hell for a while, but come ON at least Olivia was only 18???
Anyway this song feels like a good petty clapback for a petty as fuck position on Clarli XCX's part. And it's just fun vibes, because again, not even knowing the backstory, it's a fun song for when someone's hyperfixated on you and making evil eyes at your happiness/success/beauty/etc.
8. Wi$h Li$t - This one is very much about her current girlfriend-mode and her ideas for her future with Kelce, but it's genuinely kind of sweet and cute. I like the writing on it. It feels like it's a very poppy song but hits the talking points of a lot of country music, which is probably mostly me clocking the extreme hetero-ness of it but it's like... not in a yuck way, imo, at least on first impression.
9. Wood - This is my least favorite one because I do not care at all how big Travis Kelce's dick is and is anyone surprised he's a huge man in general. Happy for her, I guess. Maybe it'll grow on me when I find some stupid silly ship situation to apply it to.
10. CANCELLED! - I like this one a lot, and it's the most bitter and sassy one on the album, which kind of brought about this whole post and thought process. The music is the most aesthetically evocative in my mind. "Welcome to my underworld where it gets quite dark / At least you know exactly who your friends are / They're the ones with matching scars" is my favorite and most-relatable lyric on the album, I think.
11. Honey - Sweet love song and not too inaccessible. I like how it acknowledges the nature of false sweet talk as it were. Not my favorite but pretty good.
12. The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter) - I guess one of my mild criticisms of this album is that she really promoted it on the basis of this very aesthetic and concept-y photoshoot but most of the album doesn't have any throughline that matches the title or the aesthetic. From most other artists, I wouldn't be surprised, but Taylor is usually more deliberate about this stuff, so it makes me feel like the album feels... lazy... as compared to her others except 1989 which I also have this criticism of. That said, I really like this song. Honestly, all of Sabrina Carptener's work from the last two years feels promising and artistically thoughtful, too. It's fun for it to be a bit country-flavored, and I love how Sabrina Carpenter seems to be trying to mentor from Dolly Parton's style of country music and glamor without going full country or trying to be her. This song reminds me of Fancy by Reba McIntyre, too. Also, it's really sweet to know that it was a childhood dream of Sabrina's to work with Taylor or something.
In conclusion, I think the best three songs were "CANCELLED!", "The Life of a Showgirl", and "Actually Romantic."
And, as I was writing this, the friend I talked about reached out about the album as I predicted would happen.
I'm not mad at her in the sense that I want her to feel bad. I don't feel like she's done anything wrong in particular lately and specifically. It's just that I'm trying to figure out what to do with a kind of anger than I feel about being abandoned. Again. And not really knowing if my assessment of that feeling is fair, given either of our circumstances or history.
Since she did reach out, I went back and forth on whether or edit this post, access lock it, or what, but in the end it probably doesn't matter. It's not like she knows or cares about this URL without me pointing it out to her, and I think that whatever happens to us and how we feel belongs to us individually. I haven't posted anything identifying about her here. So, I guess, in the end, I'll post it unedited with the hope that maybe our relationship will heal in such a way that I will never feel the need to show it to her to explain how she has been hurting me through neglect (?) if I can even call it that for quite some time. And, if it doesn't get better, it's a place to put the feelings out, and if we ever do have to have a confrontation about it, I'll have the full post here for reference.
Anyone who wants to share advice or thoughts about the circumstance, please don't just yes-man me. I want to be fair, but I would appreciate people being gentle with me. I think that's what I miss most. Having more people be consciously gentle with me instead of me just being a work friend or whatever.
In the days leading up to the album release, I got reminded of the song "Happiness" by Taylor Swift, and it's about a marriage falling apart, but I can't help thinking about it in terms of how I feel about her, sometimes. It would take a whole other post and a lot more deep storytelling and detail spilling as to why, but I want to put that here in case she and I ever have to hash this out. She's also my Glinda and, I thought, I was her Elphaba, lol.
Recently, I have not heard much from that person. It kind of hurts that she doesn't really know much about what's going on with my life anymore. I know she's been going through burnout and fatigue, but it has been a thought process over the past couple of weeks to realize that even though she has kind of removed herself from my everyday sphere of thought that there's a part of my heart that is hurting for her absence.
It's not that I don't care about her, and I believe that she probably thinks she cares about me. I just think that she has this very immediate-local-reality locus of attention these days for herself. I know that a couple of years ago, she was a bit more online again, and it burnt her. But she and I met online, and it's like she used to understand my way of life and that my relationships are, by necessity, fairly online-focused.
A couple years ago, during that getting-burnt part, she thanked me for being there for her and indicated that had it not been for me that she might have been much worse off or in real danger due to the fallout of that situation. But then, as she cocooned away to try and begin the process of healing, she just pretty much vanished from my life.
She pops in every now and then, and for a while, I left her breadcrumbs or dead bird offerings, like a cat, hoping that when she bothered to check her discord notifications that she would respond to my thoughts toward her or care to show her things she liked. Sometimes, it worked.
For the most part, however, she would come in with whatever new thing she wanted to say with little or no acknowledgment of the backlog of links. And I get that the longer she was away, the more daunting 10 or 12 links might become, over the course of weeks and months. However, something kind of punched me in the chest a little.
I told her about Charlie's passing. It was just a small message. I thought she might notice or care, as her pets and stress over her aging dog has sometimes been a reason for her long-term absence or stated inability to have deep conversations. I know that, in the past, she has told me about how she only has "meme sharing" energy for people. And, to some degree, I can relate and sympathize with that. I try really, really hard to just keep telling myself that this is such a time for her and that she is dealing with what might be some kind of chronic fatigue disorder.
I try my best to reason with my emotions. But she didn't even notice the message. When I asked her if she'd seen it, she even excused it as having gotten lost in the shuffle of my sending her other relevant-to-her links. So, I told her something to the effect of, "Well, if they're too much for you to go through at this time, I'll stop sending so many."
This was two-pronged in a way. On the one hand, I mean it for both our sakes. If my efforts are not any kind of comfort to her and are just some kind of thing to maybe or maybe not bother with when she has 15 minutes of energy for interacting with me, quarterly at best it seems, then I don't think I should curate anything for her with the thought that it will be well-received or that I should give her some hypothetical social obligation to fulfill or not. On the other hand, I was really hurt that she doesn't even look at my messages closely enough, before sending one of her quarterly messages, to see if I have left a comment there about anything major in my life. Even something like losing a pet when, as I said, she has more than once put a pin in everything in her life in a very vocal and clear boundary-setting way about dealing with her pets.
When I said this, she said something like, "Do whatever's best for you."
I don't think it can be much more clear that there is a kind of dismissal of my importance and feelings there. At least, I have to assume there is.
If our relationship is ever solid enough again for me to send her this post to read, I hope that she doesn't feel angry or slighted by the fact that I am talking about her in vague terms to my online journal that's really only read by a handful of acquaintances. Because it's not like I can talk about it with her with the expectation that I will be heard anytime soon.
I kind of anticipate that she'll reach out in a few days when she's had time to listen to and digest the Taylor Swift album. That's one of "our things" together. It's a shared interest we know we have with each other even when other people in our lives don't share it.
But what counts as "in each other's lives"?
I get that people, especially married people and people with "professional" faces on their careers, have this tendency to compartmentalize and only come back to certain aspects of their lives when they have the time and emotional space for it. I do the same thing... to a degree. But I can't help but feel like I've been through two or three deep crises since she kind of dropped out of regular circulation in my life. And sure, maybe it's because her own crisis of energy and deep burnout is somehow so much worse than I understand.
But friendship is a two way street.
There have been times when she's been very good and receptive and patient with me, but I feel like she doesn't even know me anymore functionally. We talked a little last summer when I was briefly trying my luck on dating apps in Japan. We talked a little then, and it felt like things were going somewhat back to a place where she was someone I could share with emotionally. Then, she just left again. I never know why.
A few months ago, she popped in to talk to me about a certain other emotional situation for which I knew a fair amount of the context. But I guess that's what gets to me. That I know the emotional context to a lot of her stories and circumstances, but at some point, she just put up walls and said (through actions of not words) that her boundary is that if you share very much about yourself she's going to have to step away and take a breather for a completely indeterminate amount of time which seems to only get longer with each passing month and year.
I've known this person since my late teens. Longer than the person I call my best friend whom I talk to 99% of the days of my life. But she and I used to be very close, too. She was actually the reason I got my passport in the first place, even though our then-plans fell through.
And I dunno... Taylor Swift having an album again, particularly a happy album, brings all this stuff up to the surface.
I had actually only really been thinking about the album release off and on for the past week. I wasn't waiting with bated breath. But I remembered to check this morning on my way to work, and the release count down let me know that by the time I got out of work, it would be released.
While I ate dinner, I listened to it. And I am an extremely change-averse person. It takes me time to adjust to something if it is similar but different to something I am used to. So it's weird in that even if I like something, it might take me a while to warm up to it.
I've got mixed feelings about Taylor's albums that tell stories that are so perfect and highly-specific that they cannot be really extracted from knowing stuff about her personal narrative. I prefer the ones I can instantly dissociate and slap blorbo tags on.
I am happy for Taylor Swift as the kind of poet laureate of Basic Millennial White Women that she seems to be finding what seems to be some kind of happiness. In a conversation with the friend that this post turned out to mostly be about, she talked about how she assumed that Taylor Swift would marry her current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, not because he was the most interesting boyfriend she's ever had or the best man or any of that. That it doesn't really matter. That there's a lot about heterosexual settling down that has only a little to do with love and a lot more to do with finding a person you can get along with socially and sexually who's at the same spot where you are in that journey.
Taylor's wanted to get married since she released that "Lover" song back in 2019 which was essentially designed to be a catch-all wedding song that could be timeless and related to any decade for the past 50 years or more. Then, in the Midnights album, she has a song where she swaggers about how she doesn't care about the "1950s shit they want from me," and how "the only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife."
Midnights came from a moment in time where I think she still thought Joe Alwyn was going to be her forever man but was restless enough to be reflecting on all the breakups and heartbreaks and stuff that "kept her up at night."
Then, she comes the "Eras Tour era" where she -- I think, because I refuse to actually follow celebrity gossip publications because I prefer blorbos and sanity -- probably went into it thinking that she and Joe would eventually get back together. He just couldn't handle being with her when she needed to by all shiny and center of attention. Then, she realized it was actually over, immediately went into a rebound relationship with Matty Healy whom she'd known but whom she'd previously known was too fucked up, addicted, and flaky to be a long-term thing, convinced herself he was her soulmate actually, and then crashed and burned in just a few months. TTPD came out of that, both of them, and it's got a LOT of thoughtful artistry in it.
Of course, it had the benefit of having a long production cycle because of everything else she was juggling during the time it was taking shape.
Coming to this new album, Life of a Showgirl, I just can't help feeling that there's something less substantive about it.
Again, per my friend whom I can't bring myself to reach out and talk about this with, Taylor has a pretty weak sense of stable self. There are things she's about and fully incorporated, but in other ways, she molds herself to fit hr current romantic partner or the persona she has crafted to survive to breakup. And now that she's engaged with an announcement about "your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married," the whole vibe of the album is that she is in much better spirits but it makes the poetry itself more childish.
All that said, there are parts of the album I find passable and meh but other parts I enjoy. Some might grow on me more later. But I just feel like it did not hit me as hard as the last one did, and I don't know if it's just that her happy-era music isn't as deep as her sad and mad-era songs or if it's just a mismatch of my vibe surrounding the whole thing.
Here's my track by track brief impressions of this one:
1. The Fate of Ophelia - Feels the most egregious in terms of her sort of weird regression to fit into the "I am the English teacher and my boyfriend is the football coach uwu" thing in that the comparison is just... extremely high school English. And I am a high school English teacher. It's cute but weak and I don't really understand why it's the album opener unless it was to do the most meh song first so you'd be more and more drawn in.
2. Elizabeth Taylor - It kind of reminds me a bit of when she was trying to do more hiphop edge on the Reputation album but that album has grown on me over time and I do think I like this song? Like it's at least more clever in lyrical construction and kinda fun and a little more overwrought in a way that feels like the listener might be able to do something with it emotionally.
3. Opalite - I think I like this one. I definitely loved the opal color of her Eras-tour opener leotard thing and therefore I'll always like the idea of her and opal. It seems sweet but kind of "mid" to me, though.
4. Father Figure - One of the more narrative songs where she's messing with gender by singing from the perspective of a male character she's created. I kind of wondered if this was commentary on the culture of the whole Diddy (and likely Kanye-affiliated) culture of casting couch sex-for-fame that seems to be part of the aspects of "Hollywood" that she's been around but refused to be a part of.
Taylor is part of the parasite class as a billionaire. (Billionaires should not exist no matter how much I like her. I know she's charitable, but she should be even more charitable until she's no longer a billionaire over and over again to have an ethical standing in that regard.) But I say that to say that I'm pretty sure one reason Kanye has been obsessed with her for years is that she refused to be a part of something that was offered to her in that regard.
On the other hand, it reminded me of Lana Del Rey's first album and just the character fantasy stuff that was supposedly going on in folklore, even if you can look back and suggest that was a lot less fictional in some ways than she said at the time.
5. Eldest Daughter - I do like this one. It feels more relatable to the general listener like it might actually be for her audience as well as telling her own story. Like it's a love story for her and her current guy, but it isn't so hyper specific? I feel like this one is better than some of the others. "When I said I don't believe in marriage, that was a lie" goes to my earlier point about Taylor's actual emotional journey as she's written about it. Trying for years to make herself what she needed to be to make it work with Joe.
6. Ruin the Friendship - At first when it went back into the high school imagery, I thought it was going more with that teacher metaphor she keeps using for Kelce and herself. Listening all the way through did kind of catch me off guard. I liked it. Messier than some of the others. Sweet and sad. Doesn't go out of the way to try and make the narrator look either badass or pure in motive.
7. Actually Romantic - I was actually into this one enough to look up the genius notes to see who this might be about. Apparently, it's about Charli XCX. I remember back when the Era's Tour was happening, I saw some chatter on tumblr or twitter (if I still went there back then) about how Charli was "throwing shade" at Taylor for her limited releases of vinyls that are special editions of albums with bonus tracks (that she ultimately releases on spotify anyway) as though this was Taylor's most egregious environmental crime (lol??? again I'm not painting Taylor as a #notallbillionaires -- she should stop it with her careless jet fuel use). Then, there was a mixed message about how Charli thought that one of them was specifically timed to maliciously put down her new album on the UK charts? I remember having a pause to wonder if Taylor was in fact that insecure.
Then, I learned there was context I was then missing because I only ever get this stuff from some indirect means rather than keeping up with celebrity news on purpose. Apparently there is this song that Charlie XCX released called "Sympathy is a knife" which is about Taylor Swift, because when Taylor Swift was briefly dating Matty Healy, they were moving in the same social circle because Charli's boyfriend is one of Matty's The 1975 bandmates, and Charli was unspeakably insecure and jealous.
I know I might be being a bit of a hypocrite about this, because I still like Olivia Rodrigo in spite of the fact that her vent-writing about Sabrina Carpenter kind of made the latter's life hell for a while, but come ON at least Olivia was only 18???
Anyway this song feels like a good petty clapback for a petty as fuck position on Clarli XCX's part. And it's just fun vibes, because again, not even knowing the backstory, it's a fun song for when someone's hyperfixated on you and making evil eyes at your happiness/success/beauty/etc.
8. Wi$h Li$t - This one is very much about her current girlfriend-mode and her ideas for her future with Kelce, but it's genuinely kind of sweet and cute. I like the writing on it. It feels like it's a very poppy song but hits the talking points of a lot of country music, which is probably mostly me clocking the extreme hetero-ness of it but it's like... not in a yuck way, imo, at least on first impression.
9. Wood - This is my least favorite one because I do not care at all how big Travis Kelce's dick is and is anyone surprised he's a huge man in general. Happy for her, I guess. Maybe it'll grow on me when I find some stupid silly ship situation to apply it to.
10. CANCELLED! - I like this one a lot, and it's the most bitter and sassy one on the album, which kind of brought about this whole post and thought process. The music is the most aesthetically evocative in my mind. "Welcome to my underworld where it gets quite dark / At least you know exactly who your friends are / They're the ones with matching scars" is my favorite and most-relatable lyric on the album, I think.
11. Honey - Sweet love song and not too inaccessible. I like how it acknowledges the nature of false sweet talk as it were. Not my favorite but pretty good.
12. The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter) - I guess one of my mild criticisms of this album is that she really promoted it on the basis of this very aesthetic and concept-y photoshoot but most of the album doesn't have any throughline that matches the title or the aesthetic. From most other artists, I wouldn't be surprised, but Taylor is usually more deliberate about this stuff, so it makes me feel like the album feels... lazy... as compared to her others except 1989 which I also have this criticism of. That said, I really like this song. Honestly, all of Sabrina Carptener's work from the last two years feels promising and artistically thoughtful, too. It's fun for it to be a bit country-flavored, and I love how Sabrina Carpenter seems to be trying to mentor from Dolly Parton's style of country music and glamor without going full country or trying to be her. This song reminds me of Fancy by Reba McIntyre, too. Also, it's really sweet to know that it was a childhood dream of Sabrina's to work with Taylor or something.
In conclusion, I think the best three songs were "CANCELLED!", "The Life of a Showgirl", and "Actually Romantic."
And, as I was writing this, the friend I talked about reached out about the album as I predicted would happen.
I'm not mad at her in the sense that I want her to feel bad. I don't feel like she's done anything wrong in particular lately and specifically. It's just that I'm trying to figure out what to do with a kind of anger than I feel about being abandoned. Again. And not really knowing if my assessment of that feeling is fair, given either of our circumstances or history.
Since she did reach out, I went back and forth on whether or edit this post, access lock it, or what, but in the end it probably doesn't matter. It's not like she knows or cares about this URL without me pointing it out to her, and I think that whatever happens to us and how we feel belongs to us individually. I haven't posted anything identifying about her here. So, I guess, in the end, I'll post it unedited with the hope that maybe our relationship will heal in such a way that I will never feel the need to show it to her to explain how she has been hurting me through neglect (?) if I can even call it that for quite some time. And, if it doesn't get better, it's a place to put the feelings out, and if we ever do have to have a confrontation about it, I'll have the full post here for reference.
Anyone who wants to share advice or thoughts about the circumstance, please don't just yes-man me. I want to be fair, but I would appreciate people being gentle with me. I think that's what I miss most. Having more people be consciously gentle with me instead of me just being a work friend or whatever.
In the days leading up to the album release, I got reminded of the song "Happiness" by Taylor Swift, and it's about a marriage falling apart, but I can't help thinking about it in terms of how I feel about her, sometimes. It would take a whole other post and a lot more deep storytelling and detail spilling as to why, but I want to put that here in case she and I ever have to hash this out. She's also my Glinda and, I thought, I was her Elphaba, lol.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-03 02:03 pm (UTC)From:I have a friend that I've known for 40 years and he is so busy at work that sometimes months will go by without us even talking. But we haven't given up on each other. And he lives just a few miles away!
There were times in my life when I was going through a divorce or when my kids were tiny that I just didn't have anything left over for friendships. I felt bad about it but there was very little I could do.
It's hard when you are not sure if you are getting a slow fade or if the person still cares but doesn't have the time or energy.
I have had friends that I only communicated with online and if they are going through a period of illness or depression they kind of fall off the map, sometimes for months.
Wishing you the best and am glad if you are still enjoying Taylor Swift! I was never a fan (I have nothing against her, just never got around to checking out her music) but a friend of mine is a Super Fan and so I know a bit about her.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 07:37 am (UTC)From:I realize that there are times when we fall off the map for people, and I try to be understanding. However, it is hard to deal with the fact that my personality seems to invite people to rely on me but then leave me no security that I can much rely on them.
I struggle with this even with my closest friends, and the tricky situation about this relationship is that there are times when I feel like we are one of those very close relationships while there are other times that I feel treated as an afterthought and acquaintance. I know some of it is in my own emotions and head, but there is the fact that I feel I cannot rely on others for help, safety, and support, in any way.
Since the release of this album, I've kind of Gone Through a period of disillusionment with Taylor even though I still like most of her back catalogue. I feel like she's going through an ugly and unfair to her fans period of life.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 11:18 am (UTC)From:Some people turn out to be emotional vampires, others are great fair weather friends and disappear when things get hard, and others one can rely on.
Another acquaintance of mine seems to attract people who need help because her whole MO in life is To Be Helpful. People who don't need help just are not on her radar. She kind of bounces off them and never makes friends with them. Then of course she feels drained and like her friendships are not equitable. Which is true!
I have a wonderful long-time friend whom I love but she is very busy with her life and her huge circle of friends and her company and I don't get to see her nearly as often as I would like, but I know that if I had a crisis and needed help, she would come if I called and really be solid. I have had to accept that I won't see her much day-to-day or talk with her but we do catch up with long important conversations three or four times a year. Right now she is also in a book club with me so that is nice too. I have had to be content with that.
So it varies so much.
About two years ago, after moping around a lot about a particular friendship and how my life as a divorced senior citizen was shaping up, I made a list of all the friends and acquaintances that I was in touch with, online or in person. And I resolved to stop chasing people, stop being the one to get in touch and cultivate the friendship. I resolved that I would notice who reached out to ME, who wanted to see ME and focus on them. That shook things up a bit but it was good for me to stop chasing certain people. Other people I decided it was worth it to me to keep in touch even if I had to do all the reaching out.
How our parents treated us in the family system has a huge impact on all this -- what we think we deserve, what we think our role in life is, etc. And of course learning interpersonal skills has been a lifelong process for me. It keeps changing and surprising me.
Wishing you all the best.
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Date: 2025-10-25 04:57 pm (UTC)From:Part of me thinks that's just part of growing up into further adulthood, but as a teacher, I sometimes have this dark thought to myself like, "Being an adult is actually really lonely and hard and I'm not sure what I'm working for, so am I lying to kids when I tell them that any of the self-sacrifice or pushing themselves to do their best is worth it?"
I usually convince myself that it's probably better to be an educated and well-rounded person as best you can even through hard times, but it's rough.
I did not realize that you were significantly older than me, or I hadn't thought about it in a long time.
I appreciate having the perspective on life.
With the friend I kind of struggle with, I've started trying to not be petty but to not always be the next person to message.
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Date: 2025-10-25 05:54 pm (UTC)From:I would much rather be an adult than a teenager, and, as none of us chooses the life we are born into, I guess we kind of have to make lemonade.
But I have a pretty comfortable existence compared to most people in the world and I try to focus on that. Yes, capitalism sucks and there is a lot of heartbreak out there, but there is so much that is good about life. My two kids are now 25 and 27 and they live in a different world than I did, for sure.
Making friends has never been super easy for me but I am willing to put in the work. Especially now that I am divorced and also estranged from my only sibling. It feels very very lonely. But there are people I reach out to and there is always books!!!
Wishing you all the best as you grapple with this stuff. It's not easy.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-04 04:02 am (UTC)From:It's so hard to let go of those kinds of relationships. But at this point, what are you *really* getting out of maintaining it? Just a lot of heartache. It'll probably hurt to try and let this friend go, but you might be saving yourself repeated, future heartache by doing it now and getting all the pain out of the way, rather than her popping up to reopen your emotional wounds every so often.
If you still want to try, maybe send her a condensed version of this? I don't know your relationship so I don't know how she'd react to it, but you could say, "I feel like you aren't present for me. I miss you. I feel like I'm reaching out and you aren't there." If she never acknowledges it (and logs on to send you an unrelated message), or gets upset and tries to make it all about her (again, not meeting OR acknowledging your emotional needs) then maybe it's time to let go.
Easier said than done, I know. But life is so short, and our energy is so finite (especially these days with so much draining it) that we should find people that see and hear us.
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Date: 2025-10-25 07:43 am (UTC)From:Since she did, as expected, reach out to talk about the new Taylor album, and we've both been going through some measure of cognitive dissonance with it, we have been talking more lately. I also got a health update from her that seems somewhat solution oriented toward the fact that she's been kind of flaky for the past year and a half due to various issues including some chronic fatigue.
I still have some wariness about the other concerns. There was a point in time, back in 2016, when she really hurt me in a way that I think was very selfish, but that clusterfuck of circumstances led to her getting into therapy. Now, I will say that I think that people who get into therapy with genuine problems often have a period shortly after therapy starts bringing about real change in their lives when their changes can be kind of selfish and negative and toxic.
Actually, this same friend has become a therapist in the many years since 2016, and she admits that she can see that in both herself and some other people. Without getting into the specifics of any of her patients, she talks about how when clients are working with a therapist, sometimes they will make a change based on what they've talked about in therapy, report back, and be like "You were so right when you said something I absolutely did not say," because people kind of hear what they want/need to hear from others. And when a person is in flux, they kind of... apply what they want from it.
Anyway, I love and value this person, but there have been times when I have definitely thought about just stopping because maybe our needs to mesh well. However, I also think it would be shitty of me to call it quits when there's a real explanation she is trying to work on, such as a severe nutrient deficiency.
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Date: 2025-10-26 09:31 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, I can confirm that's a thing that happens. It's happened to me with friends who started therapy.
And if you love and value them and want to give them some time to work out their issues, I think there's nothing wrong with that! I like that you don't want to just drop her when she's working on things. You're a good friend! Just...make sure the amount of time you're giving her is reasonable. I don't want you to go like...10 years letting her hurt you like this, with you telling yourself she's working on things, to be patient, etc. On the other hand, communication is a two-way street, so if you get to the point where you're like, "Okay, I've given her enough time." You can always reach out to her and talk about how you're feeling...maybe she hasn't realized and will stop.