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Caitie

@intheafterglow-13 / intheafterglow-13.tumblr.com

27 🇨🇦
05.08.18
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royaltyswift

if i had a nickel for every time i thought taylor swift was going to announce a re-recorded album at an award show but got up there and announced a brand new album instead, i would have 2 nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

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taylorswift

What a truly mind blowing thing you’ve turned The Eras Tour Concert Film into. I’ve been watching videos of you guys in the theaters dancing and prancing and recreating choreography, creating inside jokes, casting spells, getting engaged, and just generally creating the exact type of joyful chaos we’re known for 😇 One of my favorite things you’ve done was when you supported Cruel Summer SO much, I ended up starting The Eras Tour show with it. For old times sake, I’m releasing the live audio from the tour so we can all shriek it in the comfort of our homes and cars PLUS a brand new remix by LP Giobbi 😜 Thank you, so much, forever, wow, just thank you!!! https://taylor.lnk.to/thecruelestsummer

AGHHHSHDHSHSHSHSH

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@taylorswift really missing you and I’m so proud of you and I’m forever inspired by you and in awe of your talent and I will ALWAYS have your back - just wanted to remind you 🥰

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DEAR TAYLOR

Just a little glimpse into how you’ve helped shape who I am
@taylorswift 
Tim McGraw was the first song I ever heard by Taylor Swift. I hadn’t really been a fan of country music so I found Taylor through a friend at the time who was obsessed with country and told me she thought this was a song and artist I’d really like. Boy was she right. The peacefulness of the song and her soft voice I think is what originally attracted me to it. Then the lyrics. Man. The entire song is a masterpiece. It was one of the first songs in my life that I genuinely related to. I was a junior in high school (I’m now 7 months away from 27) and I had a thing for a boy and the lyrics just really hit me. It’s so true how teenage boys (and let’s face it boys now who haven’t turned into men) try and woo girls by giving them such romantic compliments and it was something I had experienced myself. It had been a little after Taylor released her debut album that I heard that song, so I went and bought the whole CD as soon as I heard it. I immediately found comfort in every song in different ways. Teardrops on my guitar was related to the same crush I had who noticed me, but didn’t 100% return the attraction, he kept me on a string and hanging for so long. Cold As You and The Outside meant so much to my 16 year old self. The boy I liked had some kind of vendetta against girls in general and just sabotaged me in ways that I never experienced. Spreading lies and rumors to keep his pride when things ended between us. And I never felt someone as cold as that, but I still managed to get reeled into it again and again because I had the nerve to adore him. The Outside related to this same situation because I kept hearing whispers behind my back and people were talking and I just wanted to belong without this shadow of lies and what I thought was heartbreak hovering over me. Our Song and I’m Only Me When I’m With You were songs I related to almost a year later when I had my first “real” relationship in high school and I was just so happy. That’s how Taylor was the soundtrack to my high school years, and we related and grew together trying to fit in with the hardships of life and love.

When Fearless came out I was a hardcore fan, I was so excited and looking forward to the release of this album. I had a really terrible breakup with the high school boyfriend, graduated high school, and went on to college but I was still heartbroken over what I thought at the time was my first love (at 26 I can now see that 100% was not love, just infatuation, but at the time it felt like it). Even though I was now 18, the song Fifteen really hit me like a ton of bricks, but in a good way, if that’s possible. Like most people it made me reminisce on those years of learning and growing and thinking I was in love but knowing there was that possibility and probability of heartbreak. “when all you wanted was to be wanted, wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now” is something I related to for awhile. But as I learned and grew I now know going back and changing things would lead me to a different path then I’m on today. And I love my life (in most ways) today. The part about Abigail towards the end really hit me too. I understood it all too well. So many of those songs I related to a breakup and they helped me heal and come to terms with things. And now years later STILL relate to those songs but in a different way. Some of the songs I relate to in a way that’s not romantic. And that’s how Taylor was the soundtrack to the end of my teenage years and the start of growing up into a woman.

Speak Now came out when I had transferred colleges from PA to FL. I was about 2 months into my move to FL when it came out and I immediately fell in love with that CD just as I had the others. I hadn’t really been able to relate the songs to any circumstances in my life at that point because I was single and in a new city not knowing many people, but that all changed. I met a boy about a month after that CD came out and songs like Mine, Sparks Fly, and Enchanted became all I could listen to. The boy and I quickly got into a relationship and just as quickly things took a turn for the worse. Cheating, lies, and drug/alcohol/physical abuse were soon things that I was experiencing for the first time. Things that I never even thought in my worst nightmares would happen to me. But I was already reeled in. I thought that I was in love with this person, and he made me feel like I was unworthy for anything more than what he was giving me, so I stayed. And then, songs like Dear John, Mean, and The Story of Us were my anthems. The one positive outcome of that entire time in my life was that I came out of it with 3 lifelong friends. Long Live was a song that I constantly played when I couldn’t bear to think about any of the heartbreaking things I was going through. Those 3 girls who were my best friends got me through all of it. And that song will forever relate back to them. I’m not as close with 2 of them anymore but I know that we will always have each other’s backs no matter where life takes us. I didn’t go back to Florida after things happened with the boy I thought I loved, and so the line “Long live all the magic we made” resonated so deeply with me, because I knew all those beautiful, wonderful, enchanting memories with my 3 best friends would never be erased by the darkness I had experienced during that time. I went on to get a tattoo of that exact lyric on my shoulder and to this day it’s my favorite one (out of 12). It reminds me every day that even in the darkest of times you can still let light into your life. And because of that song and those friends, I will always think fondly of my time in Florida as opposed to remembering it as a nightmare (which I could easily do). That is how Taylor was the soundtrack to the hardest time I’ve ever gone through in my entire life.

Two years later, you guessed it, Red came out. I was still a little bit (okay a lot) broken from some of the experiences I had gone through in the past couple of years. I Knew You Were Trouble made me feel so much less alone in all that I had experienced. In the past I had thought I was INSANE for staying with that nightmare of a person, and yea, maybe I was, but I felt ashamed because I couldn’t just switch my feelings off after he had done horrible things. That song made me feel ok about my decisions because I knew there was at least one person out there (Taylor) who felt the way I did. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together was another good one for me and made me happy because I was finally at that point in my life where I had power over my choices and turned away someone who was bad for me. All Too Well, which to this day is tied with Long Live for my all time favorite song, was one that brought out every emotion I didn’t know I had. That song, perfectly described feelings and situations to the T that I had personally experienced. From leaving the scarf that he still has, to referencing the song Sweet Disposition which had been a favorite of mine during that time in my life, to your mother telling stories about you, and dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light. From asking for (what he thought was) too much, to running scared and casual cruelty, and completely and utterly losing myself to that person, and so much more, I will never be able to find the words to thank Taylor for writing that song. I’m tearing up writing this now, just thinking about where I might be if I hadn’t had that song to comfort me when I needed it. I’m a strong person, so I know I would’ve gotten through these struggles with or without Taylor, but I may be here today feeling a lot more alone with unresolved feelings. But thanks to her and her lyrics and therapy, I am happy. And that is how Taylor was the soundtrack to me getting through what I thought was unrepairable and helping me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

During the course of the 2 years before 1989 came out, aka the Red era, I felt more connected to Taylor then ever before. I felt like we had been through most of the same experiences or some variation of them, and we were both building ourselves back up and finding who we were. The spring of 2014 after dropping out of college a couple years prior, and working at a dead end job, I decided to find my true passion and go to beauty school. I graduated 4 months later in July of 2014 and felt happier and more me than I had ever felt in my entire life. I finally felt HAPPY to be by myself, on the journey of my new path in life, done with all the drama of the past (which is way more than I wrote about here) and I just felt whole again. And then Shake It Off came out and it just reiterated the fact that me and Taylor were on the same page. We both shook off the troubles and hardships of the past and came out on the other side of being a girl, as women who were happy to be who they truly were and happy to be alive and nurturing friendships and family and just HAPPY in general.

And then 1989 came out. And it expressed ideas of freedom and loving yourself and even though there were still hardships expressed throughout the album, to me it resembled growth and letting go and knowing that the dark times wouldn’t last forever. Every one of those songs makes me happy. Clean was a song didn’t necessarily help me through things because I had moved past them already, but it was a song that made me understand things even more. And once again helped me relate to Taylor and just moving on from the past. And it is an anthem I would scream from the mountain tops if I could. During the very beginning of the 1989 era I was in a new relationship after a couple years of finding myself: This was different from all the rest. You Are In Love means so much to me because it was the first love song that I related to a love that was actually good for me. This love that I’m talking about is someone I’m still together with to this day, and someone who loves every single part of me. After 3 years of love, light and laughter we live together and our bond is stronger than ever. And this song describes everything I feel so perfectly. And that is how Taylor has been the soundtrack to me finally being happy and loving myself without expecting or even wanting the approval of ANYONE except myself.

I hope someday I get the chance to tell her how much she has affected my life in such a positive way. I know 
I’m FAR from the only person here with a story of how Taylor has impacted their lives. I hope she knows how important she is to not only me, but every Swiftie in this entire fandom, whether it’s someone who has shared their story, or someone who hasn’t, she has affected all of our lives in ways that none of us ever imagined. So here is my thank you to Taylor, for being the soundtrack to my entire life. I can’t wait to see how Reputation helps me become more of who I am.

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𝒥𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓃𝒶 𝒽𝓊𝑔 𝒾𝓉 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒯𝒶𝓎𝓁𝑜𝓇 𝒶𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓈. 𝐼 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝑜 𝓂𝓊𝒸𝒽 𝓁𝑒𝓉’𝓈 𝒽𝓊𝑔 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝓃?
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I love you @taylorswift I’m so proud of you. I’m just so endlessly in awe of you and have been for 17 years. And will be for the next 17 and the 17 after that and I fucking love you okayyyyyy we will hug one day!!!!!!!!!

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Saw the eras tour film twice in one weekend because you know the greatest films of all time we’re made to be seen more than once 🫶 @taylorswift

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