Think boredom is a choice? Think again. We're all searching for things to do while playing it COVID safe, but searching for things to do in a pandemic while pregnant presents a whole new set of challenges; a set that Allie Hartwick is ready to take on.
This week, during all of my working and non working hours, I've been doing one thing: listening to Taylor Swift.
On Friday, April 9th, Taylor Swift reclaimed an album she wrote at 18 years old. By meticulously re-recording and releasing Fearless (Taylor's Version), she took back ownership of songs that launched her into superstardom.
Also, all of America got to feel like they were 18 again, thanks to her timeless teenage songwriting.
The joke's been made before, but the world should be thankful most of us didn't write music at 18. It would be horrible. We luckily had T-Swift to do it for us.
Swift has grown into one the most versatile and talented artists out there, and while I'm still really digging folklore and evermore (her surprise quarantine releases), I loved revisiting her country-pop roots. I also loved revisiting that time in my life, as memories of where I was, and how life was going for me at the time Fearless was released, came flooding back with the opening chords of track one.
In the summer of 2009, I was officially a few months out of college and working as a camp counselor during the day and a bartender at night. The economy had effectively crashed, the housing market had bottomed out, and millions had recently lost their jobs. It was overall not a great time to be entering the workforce, and I felt nothing like the almost-adult I was supposed to be.
Fortunately for me, I spent my days with kids, and my nights with intoxicated adults who behaved a whole lot like the kids did. Neither of these groups cared much about my developmental failures, and I was just there to have some fun and make sure no one died.
Despite all indicating factors, this was June and NOT St. Patrick's Day
One perk of both jobs was listening to music most of my workday/night. While I have nothing against Rihanna or Pitbull, I've got a LOT against the Black Eyed Peas, which is all the bar seemed to play. I far preferred the jams of my 10 year old campers which included Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, and of course, Taylor Swift.
Fearless had been released the winter before camp, and You Belong With Me was her current single. Taylor Swift was EVERYWHERE and I was fine with that, especially when campers requested we listen to YBWM for the 5th time in a row. To this day, I cannot pull together the right words to appropriately express how much I love this song. I had an easier time writing my wedding vows.
Seeing how deeply Swift's songs affected me, or picking up on the fact that I was constantly dancing around my apartment to her YouTube videos (Spotify was not a thing yet), a friend gifted me a Fearless CD.
Yep, my 2004 Ford Escape still had a CD player, as most cars did in '09, and iPods held like 90 songs and used complicated tapes and cables to play through car speakers. CDs were how we listened to music, so Boomers who want to gripe about technology and "kids these days" can shut it now. This was only like 10 years ago.
That CD spun in my car uninterrupted from June to September of 2009. Swift had a song for every emotion you could possibly feel in the course of a day, and it felt really great to sing that emotion out while driving. Plus, passers-by got a really entertaining ear/eyeful.
What I really loved about Taylor Swift wasn't her upbeat melodies, or girl next door vibe, it was that her songs were so purely youthful, and made me feel the way I did when I was younger and more carefree.
And in this moment in my life, I wanted to feel like a teenager, when my biggest concerns were whether or not my crush liked me (he did not) and if my college applications were being positively received by admissions officers (they were).
At that teenaged time, not having a boyfriend that decorated my locker, or even called my house at night seemed like the biggest deal ever. Relationship drama never really goes away, but at the time, that was legitimately one of my only problems. Talk about privilege.
Now that I was attempting to pay rent, find a job with no experience and limited qualifications, and keep track of all the basic life responsibilities like car maintenance and doctors appointments, having a boyfriend was far from my only concern, and it did not seem like the dream it once appeared to be.
And I did have a boyfriend at this point. The same guy who married me a few years later and knocked me up a few years after that.
But when You Belong With Me came on, I wasn't singing to him, and I sure as hell wasn't thinking about the lone $70 in my bank account or the unpaid parking ticket rotting away in my glove compartment. Nope. I was singing to the boy who only saw me as a friend in high school, despite my palpable and perpetual longing for him. A boy I had no interest in dating now (and had actually become incredible friends with), but needed to scream my feelings at through song.
Most teenage melodrama is pure cringe when viewed from a lens of increased age and maturity. Need proof? Just try reading your middle school diary, I dare you. Bet you last fewer than ten pages before lighting it on fire.
But Taylor Swift is different.
She makes those years feel legitimate, and like the idea of your life being made by a perfect date, or ending entirely after a breakup isn't ridiculous or embarrassing. It's real.
She put a literal voice to that early joy and pain.
Now, twelve years later, I'm listening to the album all the way through again. This time, it's streaming on Spotify, and travels with me across devices and bluetooth connected speakers. This time, I've had just as many years out of school as I did in them. This time, I've got a job I love, a husband I also love, and a tiny little fetus that I love despite his constant efforts to explode my insides with his baby feet. But despite all those life differences, the feelings are exactly the same, and they are just as real and raw as the first time I felt them.
