Midnight wings officially clipped fellow Swifties

I cannot let this season come to a conclusion without acknowledging the most stressful Tuesday of my life which led to the greatest few months of my life which are now being curtained and forever shall remain known as THE GRAND DISAPPOINTMENT. You know the Tuesday of which I speak my fellow Swifties. Tuesday November 15th 2022. Forever it will go down in the annals of fandom as the day the ticket selling companies betrayed us and the world came to a halt as hundreds of thousands of us were left stranded in waiting room hell watching little dickhead computer men walk in place on unmoving orange lines for hours and hours and hours. We were commited and owed this and we were rewarded by being kicked out when we finally reached the top. Personally I nearly died and/or divorced my husband as I had forced him to wait nine hours in line to finally, barely get tickets when he bitched out at the last minute over choosing seats of all things (dude take whatever goddamn seat you can get!) and he lost his place in line. After nine hours of agony I was in and I was blessed with two beautiful nosebleed tickets at a reasonable price for the April show in Texas. Now however, I have had to make the most adult decision of my life and bow out of the attending the concert. Mainly for financial reasons as the cost to attend from where I currently live now would be incredibly irresponsible and set us back on our debt repayments.

I have been a sometimes undercover and most times not so undercover Taylor Swift fan since….well at least this photo was taken in 2013. TBH I think the one sided relationship began as far back as 2010. For a few years I hid this predictable, basic white girl trait of mine out of shame, a desire to not be a stereotype and to be cool I guess. Nowadays you will find me less concerned with being cool and more concerned with who I want to be when I grow up and how I can manage my adult imposter syndrome. (Am I the only over 30 year old that feels like a child play acting at being a grownup?)

Some of the most significant moments of my life have taken place with a backdrop of a Taylor Swift album soundtrack. Every time I play Red-Taylor’s Version obviously because the ten minute production of All Too Well’ is just such an excellent improvement on the original-I am immediately transported back to my very own Wet, Hot, American Summer in California at the ripe age of 21/22 when every facet of my life changed. My sense of smell and touch kick into gear and I can still clearly recall looking at the skyline of Vegas for the first time while arriving on a 4am Greyhound about to go see the Grand Canyon with the dulcet beats of State of Grace blasting in my ears. My bestie at the time Aisling is snuggling on my shoulder and I felt alive, young and free in a way I can’t describe in words. A way that is hard to generate now in my thirties where I have the usual burdens of bills, work and the responsibility of others to bear in the choices I make. I am on that bus and I am a version of myself who I regard with warmth and joy and it just makes me ache with gratitude at being alive.In my whole life there are a number of elements that invoke this awakeness and beautiful sense of nostalgia and visceral self-walking into the past and honestly Taylor’s music is one of them.

I have been playing Lavender Haze on repeat since it was released and I am absolutely delighted that it has been such a rousing success. Something about Taylor’s musical growth story really moves me. I understand there are haters and criticisms of her publicity stunts, marketing moves and public politics in the past do have some validity sure. Although I would counter that and say isn’t that something we should critically analyse in ALL celebrities? However, Taylor is a young woman who experienced a lot I won’t ever know about-fame, celebrity, wealth, paparazzi- and some I as a woman do know about-grooming, abusive men, manipulation, deep insecurity and a desire to be known, loved and to love well. I think that it’s cool to see her evolve both professionally and creatively. This album is Taylor at her most aggressive, she swears, she outright COMES for the men who have used her in the past *cough cough John Mayer. She takes all the beauty and rich lyric writing she harnessed on Folklore and Evermore and bonds it to catchy pop beats that is brilliantly executed in this Renaissance for Pop music that most people I feel can connect to and that is so much a part of the embodied human experience. She has gone through many transformations of herself which a vast majority of our generation can relate too. Her first music video and lead single released was Antihero and it swiftly (heh heh see what I did there) became the anthem of the moment. According to Taylor it’s none of her favourite songs she has ever written. It encapsulates the massive anxiety and general identity crises I think a lot of millennials are feeling right now as we begin to move into the role of the ‘elder generation’ to make room for this upcoming, next group of vibrant and inexplicable youths. Taylor is clever in her storytelling of what it means to be part of a culture of desperate self-definition coupled with the loss of security, safety and trust in the institutions of being human that served previous generations as bedrock. The album is fun, it’s silly and deep while serving up some fun layers and beats. The last few years of album production for her have been one massive success after another and her sound and skills have grown as she has. I know the tour will be fabulous as she has always been a stellar live performer and it’s will be fun to see what she does next.

I live on a tiny island in the ocean and because of that fact I had to wait A MONTH after the mainland fans for my special edition, pre-ordered Midnights Vinyl arrives. Obviously I am a dickhead for complaining about this fact because I live in a beautiful place but lord was it agonising. Now, that same locationary (is that a word?) fact is what is preventing me from experiencing something I have wanted to do for over a decade: see Lady Swift live. My heart is broken but I know that there are many fans in the same boat as I or who never even got tickets in the first place and that makes me feel betterish. Sometimes we have to hold out hope that there is goodness in the face of disappointment and what seems devastating now will one day reflect back as a choice that allowed for space for other positives and sweet things to enter into our days. That’s what I tell myself every time I feel inordinately sad about the whole thing. I am grateful to have music and have the ability to listen to it in such myriad beautiful ways. There is something to be said for the freedom of caring not for what people think of your personal music choices and embracing the status of ‘screaming fan’. Sometimes I feel I am regressing to a more simplified version of myself, maybe that’s what it means to lean into the human experience. As Taylor writes, “I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser”. Maybe that’s ok loves, after all life is so short and sweet. As Taylor concludes on the 3AM edition of Midnights the self-doubt, mistrust, pain and soul questioning is all part of parcel of trying to figure this shit out. At least that’s how I feel when drunk dancing to this album at night with my husband of seven years as we try to start life over again with nothing except reconciling with the grief of losing a home, unresolved childhood trauma and a completely open door into an unknown and massive life.