Friday morning started like almost all of my mornings. Wake up tired and stumble toward the shower. Get ready for work, make sure my younger kid has her teeth brushed and that my older kid has everything he needs in his backpack. If I've got a few extra minutes, I can grab some coffee, wipe down the counters of my cozy old home, and worry a bit about whether that crack in the wall is getting bigger and if we need to do something about that.
At no point in this Friday, or any Friday in recent memory, did I worry about my heart being broken. I didn't experience the yearning of new love or the fierce anger of finding out that the man I thought I loved turned out to be a jerk. I didn't leave any scarves behind at anyone's sister's house and I didn't vow to never, ever get back together with someone. But last Friday, I did all of those things with the sound of Taylor Swift's re-recorded masterpiece Red (Taylor's Version) in the background. The album — which is already breaking records for number of streams and sales in the first few days of its release — turns out to be more than just a collection of bops and ballads. It might actually be a sort of musical time machine.
As I listened to the 10-minute version of 'All Too Well' on repeat, something kind of magical happened.
It wasn't just the magic of hearing an absolutely perfect song lyric ("You call me up again just to break me like a promise/ So casually cruel in the name of being honest," continues to be a gut punch every time), it was the kind of magic that comes with remembering who I used to be, of reconnecting with the part of myself that has been lost to the comfort and routine of being in my 40s.
'Red (Taylor's Version)' is a flashback to what it's like to be a brand-new adult.
I suppose I'm not unique in looking back on my 20s with a mixture of nostalgia, wistfulness, and a tiny bit of embarrassment. I was newly graduated from college, broke as hell, but proud to be living on my own in my crappy little apartment. It felt like all of life's big questions were still waiting to be answered: Would I fall in love, would anyone love me back, was there a happy-ever-after waiting for me? There was so much drama in that stage of life. There were bad dates, underwhelming boyfriends, and the jealousy that sometimes came with it seeming like everyone else was figuring things out faster than I was. Those days were full of possibility, but they were also really hard because there was just so much uncertainty.
If I'm being honest, that was a hot mess period of my life.
When Taylor Swift is at her best, her songs perfectly capture the feelings of being in a particular moment. Red (Taylor's Version) is all about that stage of life when a woman is chasing heartbreak and still trying to figure out who she'll be in the world. In a recent Instagram post, Taylor described that musically, Red "resembled a heartbroken person … happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past." If there is a better description for being a woman on the cusp of starting her real life, I'm not sure I've heard it.
I'm 43 now, married for 16 years, and fully in the mom phase of my life.
I'm well past the phase where love felt overwhelming and new, where my heart could be broken by a phone call after three months, so it might seem odd that this album feels so intensely relatable to me. But after listening to it a few more times, I think I know why it is hitting me so hard (and it isn't just the song "Ronan," which is perfectly designed to be absolutely devastating to any mom who listens to it).
I'm not the woman I was at 22, but that woman is still a part of me.
My life right now feels busy but settled. The big questions have all been answered. Yes, I'll fall in love. Yes, he'll love me back. Yes, we'll make a family. Yes, I'll have a career that feels meaningful. Yes, thankfully, things won't always feel so hard. In the end, it turns out that I did get a happy ending, in the form of a life that looks pretty ordinary from the outside. It can be easy to be so busy with the day-to-day of this version of my life that I can forget all of the earlier versions of myself that I was before I was a mom and a wife.
'Red (Taylor's Version)' reminds me of how far I've come.
When I think about my earlier self, sometimes I can feel judgmental about the mistakes I made. The guy I kissed who I really, really shouldn't have. The consuming crush I had on someone who only saw me as a warm body. The secrets I told and then regretted when relationships crumbled as a result. But when I listen to an album that is basically a soundtrack to that period of life, I feel more gentle with myself. I was trying to figure it out and I finally did. I've got stability now, which I'm grateful for. Thanks to Taylor Swift, I now also have the perfect album to listen to when I want to remind myself of how far I've come to get here.
