You’re on Your Own, Kid
You Can Face This
The hours leading up to Taylor Swift’s midnight release of The Tortured Poets Department felt like Christmas Eve. Even the line cooks at the restaurant where I work rushed to close up so they could go home and listen to the new album.
I poured myself a glass of red wine as the album’s opening notes played. I listened to the songs in order. I poured myself another glass — and then another. My cats curled up at my feet. I wanted to hear the album exactly as she intended.
Right Where You Left Me
Taylor Swift is the older sister I never had. She experienced high school, unrequited love, and adulthood before I did, so when I hit those milestones, I could play her old albums and know that someone felt this way, too. It’s not just me.
The Tortured Poets Department was released two years after I experienced my first adult break-up. Two years after I was fired from what I thought was my dream job and diagnosed with Autism, which ended the illusion of self-sufficiency I built my identity around.
Forging a new identity involves letting old parts of your identity die as the people we were fade and the people we are becoming take their place.
