A few months before Taylor released a music video with her selves throughout her career, I myself had been sitting on my own throne of past lives. Her album Red came out a few months after I started calling my heartbreaker Red, and her album of second chance love came out the same year a boy returned to me time and time again.
My point is, her music always come at the right time for me. Why do you think I'm revolving my blog posts around her songs now? But sometimes it goes deeper than just a song to relate to. Sometimes it feels like she wrote these lyrics for you, knowing you're not talented to do so yourself.
The year I turned 21 was supposed to be fun, and maybe it was to a certain extent. I was working with people who were more sisters than colleagues, my relationship lasted the whole year, no big family arguments that I can remember.
Took a trip to Bali with my family, found new songs on Spotify, rediscovered my love of making little videos. Fetched my boyfriend from work every off day, friends with his friends and the only tears I shed were for the characters I read about. I was already living like I hadn't just killed an innocent life the year before. So what else was wrong?
This song may have come six years too late, but I still remember the resonating feelings. It was the loneliness that came on the trips home after work, after sending him off on bus 950. It was having no friends of my own and seeing the girls from secondary school being fine without me. It was the solitary ride after a day visiting the homes of his secondary school friends.
It was the feeling of towering over everyone just by being taller than the average Singaporean girl. It was the feeling of being an entirely different species just by being born a different year, by being the only one working full-time, by being the only one who hated rain and loved the sun.
Staring at the sun head-on was so much easier than looking at myself in the mirror. The front teeth and sparse eyebrows so blinding, shining over the bit of love he had for me. The whispers from his friends and the voices in my head, preparing me for the time he would leave again.
Now I'm her reflection in the mirror, stuck in 2023 and looking out at 2016, wishing I could tell her she's alright the way she is. Wishing I could hold her gaze and tell her only seven years later, non-conformities will be celebrated. Wishing I could tell her she was never the villain in anyone's story and merely the unfortunate anti-hero.
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