An Open Letter to Taylor Swift on Reputation’s Release Day

Maybe the song is lying.  The old Taylor isn't dead.  She's still a hopeless romantic and I'm actually worried about her. 

Before I go any further, let me say that I adore Taylor.  I have every single one of her albums on my phone and still listen to them regularly.  Songs like "I Knew You Were Trouble," "Style" and "Dear John" spoke to me so strongly that I wondered if Taylor and I dated the same guys. (Spoiler alert. We didn't.  My failed relationships were with men far less famous than hers, but they obviously shared a lot of qualities with Harry Styles and John Mayer.)

Because her music spoke so directly to me, waiting for Reputation to be released felt like waiting till Christmas Day to open gifts. When someone e-mailed me a link to the album leak yesterday afternoon, I stopped doing what I was doing to track through it song by song.  I love it, but something about it bothered me for hours after my first three listens.  This was an open letter to Taylor that I posted on Facebook last night and wanted to share with you in hopes that if it doesn't reach Taylor, it reaches someone who needs to hear it.

An Open Letter to Taylor Swift on Reputation's Release Day

Ok, this is still bothering me hours later. I'm on the 3rd time through the new Taylor Swift album and it's great, but makes me so sad at the same time. The truth is all but 2 tracks (Look What You Made Me Do and Getaway Car) are about how obsessed she is with her new boyfriend.

In a big sister way, I feel like I have to say something about it. Most of her relationships lasted mere months (Calvin Harris being the exception) and all of a sudden the new guy of less than a year is THE ONE. He could be and I love her, so I hope he is. I really hope everything I'm about to say is wrong. 

It's not my place to pass judgement on anyone. Please spare me the "I met my husband on Tinder and we were married in 6 months" stories. I know it can happen, but those stories are few and far between.

Tay? I've been there. I was in a bad relationship when I left home. When it was falling apart, I was all in on the first guy that told me I wasn't so "broken." I felt every single thing that you express on this album. I let whatever we had completely define who I was and when it completely fell apart in mere months (We'd gone from seeing each other every day to complete strangers like that.  I still can't look this guy in the eyes because of how bad it hurt,) I didn't know who I was anymore.

It took me three years, plenty of tears and hours of therapy to come back from that. Then the right guy said the wrong thing to me on the right night. That led to football, beer and the journey we've been on for almost three years. But all of it happened really, really slowly because I was not about to let him define who I AM. And I'm lucky that if I ever did let the "we" come before the "me" so much that I'm stopped doing the quirky fun things that make me who I am, he'd smack me upside the head.

Tay, the timeline between Calvin to Tom to Joe happened so seamlessly that I really hope you've had the time to get to know WHO YOU ARE before you let your new relationship define that. Sincerely, I hope it works out for you. If it does, I'm hoping this message may reach someone else who needs to hear it right now.

XO, 

Michelle Heart