2020’s queen of productivity just gave me a 360˚ moment I never expected with the long-awaited release of her re-recorded songs from 13 years ago. Yes, 13.
This isn’t your typical proclamation about Taylor Swift’s old-but-new album. Instead, this is a story about a girl who met a boy at the beginning of her admiration for the multi-awarded singer-songwriter.
It was in 2008 when I became a die-hard Swiftie. I already knew about Swift’s songs from her debut album prior to the release of Fearless, but the latter just hit me quite differently. “Love Story” took my breath away with its captivating storytelling, “Forever & Always” made me resentful towards Joe Jonas for that 27-second phone call, and “The Best Day” transported me back to the good ol’ days of being a tiny rugrat running around the house. Listening to the entire album felt like I was already hearing the songs from the soundtrack of my life despite not even having reached high school yet.
Related: This Taylor Swift Song Became A Pillar For My Love Affair And I Shouldn’t Have Let It
A love story written by Taylor Swift
In the middle of that significant period of my pre-teen life, I also met a boy from the other side of the door. He had that don’t-you-wish-you-had-me grin, causing me to smile and melt like a child in front of dozens of friends and strangers. As our relationship went on, it was crystal clear I fell for someone who gave me that roller coaster kind of rush that every girl just wants to experience. But in spite of all the surprise school visits and late-night conversations, ours was a love affair that had an abrupt ending.
Fast forward to February 2021, the Artist of the Decade finally graced her fans with “Love Story (Taylor’s Version),” more than 10 years after the original version came out. Upon hearing it for the first time, it gave me this sense of nostalgic peace I never thought I would ever experience with a song. That 11-year-old girl inside of me instinctively remembered what love was like–or at least what she thought the concept of love was at the time–and it all felt magical again.
No amount of freedom got me clean
But that wasn’t necessarily the exact moment where everything came full circle. Instead, it was when I got a message, completely out of the blue, from the same boy who changed his mind all those years ago. How is it that when “You All Over Me (From the Vault),” a song that completely narrates Swift fighting to wholeheartedly move on from an old flame, was officially released for the entire world to hear, we were supposed to meet and catch up in person? I was stunned by the sheer irony of it all.
Why am I sharing all this about me, him, “us?” Ask Miss Taylor Swift herself, LOL. But in all seriousness, I think it’s because he’s the only one from my past that, should the universe give us the chance to try again, I definitely would. Head first, fearless.
