Taylor Swift is getting married & I really truly care
paper rings & invisible strings (oh my my my)
On Tuesday morning, I pulled into work and Taylor Swift announced her engagement. I made a few calls, spammed a few group chats, posted it to my story. TAYLOR SWIFT IS GETTING MARRIED became my Paul Revere chant.
On Tuesday afternoon, some unrelated personal news reminded me how very single I am. It felt like the world was spinning around me—and there I was caught in the middle, alone.
On Tuesday night, I stayed up with friends to watch Belly and Jeremiah break off their engagement while Conrad makes his feelings for Belly crystal clear in the newest episode of the Summer I Turned Pretty.
Around 10 years old, I began wrestling with the not-like-other-girls phenomenon, because dang it I want to be unique and interesting but also I truly love popular things. Not every popular thing, of course, and not everything I like is popular…but Taylor Swift was not exactly indie.
I decided early on to fight that feeling of shame with enthusiasm—because it shouldn’t be embarrassing to be a girl with interests. I couldn’t survive with a love for photography in the 2010s otherwise.
So yes, I’m a fangirl.
And as much as our excitement about Taylor Swift’s engagement is due to parasocial relationships (OUR GIRL FINALLY FOUND HER GUY!!!)1 it feels so meaningful because this is what she spent her “whole life trying to put to words2.” We watched the hopeless romantic who rewrote Romeo and Juliet3 fall in love and end in flames and begin again4. She gave words to the quiet love that cleans up with you after the party ends5 and the anxiety of not believing anyone will ever choose to stay6 and believing your love is divinely orchestrated7.
She doesn’t only write about relationships (mirrorball8, Soon You’ll Get Better9, Nothing New10, Clara Bow11, Castles Crumbling12, this is me trying13, Long Live14, the last great american dynasty15, The Best Day16, marjorie17, The Lucky One18, Never Grow Up19, epiphany20, I Hate It Here21 among others) but she has truly provided the soundtrack for millions of love lives. And how is being best known for love and heartbreak songs a dig when almost every song on the radio is about the same thing anyway?
As a little kid listening to Taylor Swift, I was not altogether sold on the romance. I cried alone on the bedroom floor, listening to Never Grow Up on repeat: Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room. Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home. Remember the footsteps, remember the words said. And all your little brother's favorite songs. I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone.
And now I’m crying again after one glance at the lyrics to The Best Day (a song about Taylor’s mom): And now I know why the all the trees change in the fall. I know you were on my side. Even when I was wrong. And I love you for giving me your eyes. Staying back and watching me shine and I didn't know if you knew. So I'm taking this chance to say. That I had the best day with you today.
The Taylor Swift story, as the narrator presents through her songs, is not just a love story, although it is that too. It’s a coming of age story, grappling with growing up and chasing dreams and struggling with fame and parents health issues and, yes, falling in love.
And I can’t relate to that last part. I’ve never had a boyfriend, yet I belt Mr Perfectly Fine22 loudly enough for friends to ask “who hurt you?” genuinely. I’ve never experienced a breakup but I relate to asking “the traffic lights if it'll be all right…they say, "I don't know."”23
We watched Taylor Swift write about marriage and family, yet seemingly never quite finding the man also ready to commit: “I like shiny things but I’d marry you with paper rings”24… “talkin' rings and talkin' cradles”25 …“give you my wild, give you a child”26.
Now we see that story thread coming together with Travis Kelce. After writing songs in high school saying “in your life you'll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team, I didn't know it at fifteen”27 she toured the globe while dating said boy on a football team. This is a girl who has made the one month she existed in 1989 a defining personality trait and a boy with an 87 on his jersey…and a song written at fifteen with the lyrics:“I'll be eighty-seven; you'll be eighty-nine. I'll still look at you like the stars that shine”28.
I’ve seen comments worried that marriage will ruin her songwriting, because how can Taylor possibly write without heartbreak?? and wishes for a post-divorce album. And I know they are public figures that we find it fun to speculate about…but dang. She’s been writing about more than heartbreak since the beginning. She wrote some of my favorite songs about what she imagined love would be like. Imagine what a secure relationship can inspire.
I can’t relate to Taylor Swift in a lot of ways. I’ve never experienced fortune and fame, I’m not in a relationship, my world tour was not cancelled because of COVID, I’ve never experienced nearly the whole world hating me and calling me a snake. But the themes she writes about are relatable: anxiety and yearning and loss and wanting to be remembered and being a hopeless romantic.
On her debut album, she brings up for the first time a continual theme in her work: who am I?
I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know
I'll be strong, I'll be wrong, oh but life goes on
Oh, I'm just a girl, trying to find a place in this world29
Sixteen years later, Taylor released her tenth album, Midnights, with a similar refrain:
Everything you lose is a step you take
So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it
You've got no reason to be afraid
You're on your own, kid / Yeah, you can face this
You're on your own, kid / You always have been30
This one line caused a friendship bracelet craze at the Eras Tour, leading to Travis making her a friendship bracelet with his number and essentially proclaiming to the world “TAYLOR I WANT TO DATE YOU!!!” on his podcast.
A few months later, they were dating. Two years later, they are engaged. “This is what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager,” Taylor recounted on that same podcast.31 Immediately after recording that episode, he proposed in his backyard surrounded by thousands of flowers.
So yes, I’m invested in the storyline of this stranger’s life. Perhaps she reminds me that you won’t be too much for the right person (peace) and it might not look how you expect it to (Fifteen) and in the end what’s meant to be will be (invisible string). And perhaps she showed me that as much as I don’t want to grow up and lose everything I currently have and love (Never Grow Up) that there are good things after the growth (You’re On Your Own Kid).
No matter what you’re going through, there’s a Taylor Swift song for the occasion. There’s something comforting about that. And you can always find someone online who holds the title of #1 (niche song) fan, no one knows your story like I do!!! There is a Reddit discussion on every Taylor song with a lively discussion on how much it meant to them and got them through a difficult time.
You’re never alone.
Isn’t that what’s beautiful about caring about things earnestly? Whether it’s Taylor Swift or The Summer I Turned Pretty or Twilight or the Angels or the Super Bowl.
How much has Taylor influenced my perception of love? I’m not sure, I’ve never known a world without her music. I’m glad I never have to.
p.s. Don’t be surprised if the next thing I post is about a teenage love triangle (TSITP), this is the most invested I’ve been in anything in a long time and I can’t think about anything else.
Even though, yes, she is a billionaire who does not know I exist. I don’t collect every vinyl variant, I don’t own any TS cardigan…this is the middle space in which I choose to exist.
I loved reading this so much! I love the way you told this story.