Sobbing in the Shower to Taylor Swift
Author: Katherine Hall
Editor: Maisie Page
I listen to Taylor Swift now – and I admit this begrudgingly. She plays from my pink JBL Bluetooth speaker, the volume turned down to the lowest possible level that still counts as sound, my bedroom door firmly closed. I feel like an imposter. Because, in truth, I had never really been a fan. I had never sought out her songs. I had never resonated with her or her music. I had always thought her music to be too pop, too generic, too wordy (must she incorporate a rhyme into every lyric?), too upbeat, too depressing, too millennial. Overrated. Simultaneously too much and yet not enough – her music somehow lacking in a way that I could never quite place. What was it that was so quintessentially absent in her music? The answer seemed to evade both Taylor Swift and me; that crucial something that would remain forever unattainable, preventing me from ever truly connecting with her discography.
But this morning, I sobbed to her music in the shower. Covered in a milky lather of vanilla and coconut-scented soap, hair sopping, being pelted by hot water as steam fogged the bathroom mirror, I cried. And cried. And cried. And Taylor Swift played. And played. And played. And – to my absolute bewilderment – switching artists, songs, or genres did not occur to me once.
I sobbed for the simple fact that I was listening to Taylor Swift. That I never had before. That her music was so foreign to me, so strange for me to be consuming, and yet somehow inconceivably nostalgic. That it was so uncharacteristic of me. That everything felt so uncharacteristic of me these days. That I worry I’ve lost parts of myself I may never fully recover, and listening to Taylor Swift feels like the final straw.
I initially blamed my ex-boyfriend for this bizarre development, my pointer finger extended shamelessly (he did it!). It was, undoubtedly, his fault that I now resonated with “Better Man” and “How Did It End?” That I now felt those songs in my core, her lyrics seeping into my bones and settling within my marrow. That I now intimately understood the same heartbreak, disappointment, and frustration that Swift so thoroughly described.
And I realize now, with a clarity so jarring and embarrassingly obvious, what had been irrevocably absent in her music. What had been lacking – not necessarily in Taylor Swift, but in me – experience. Because I now resonate with her wordy lyrics that rhyme too much, and her overrated songs about heartache, and her too-pop, too-millennial anthems that I had once dismissed on principle. And I now understand that it is experience that transports us into the next era of our lives. That change is beautiful; it marks transformation and evolution. All of which is made possible by experiences, both the good and the bad.
Taylor Swift understands that well enough, so why shouldn’t I? She embraces every experience, every moment, every exchange, and memorializes it all within song. To grow is to let go of the things, traits, and people that no longer serve you – and to look back on those experiences fondly in spite of everything. I loved the version of myself who didn’t like Taylor Swift, just as I love the version of me who now sobs to her discography in the shower.
Every version, every era, every laugh, every bad haircut, every broken heart, every questionable decision, every impulsive purchase – like buying a $7 chai latte I absolutely did not need – I look back on all of it with love. Because with every experience, I take a small, shattered and discarded piece of it with me, gluing them together like a makeshift puzzle to create the person that I am today.
So make it your goal to embrace every experience, to love every version of you: the pre-Swift era, the post-breakup era, the bad-decision era, the financially struggling era, the bangs era (we do not speak of her), all of it, because each piece snaps into place eventually. And if the newest piece of you is sobbing in the shower to Taylor Swift, then so be it.
