An open letter to one of the strongest women i know.

An open letter to one of the strongest women I know, Miss Taylor Allison Swift.

Dear gutsy women like Taylor Swift

Have you ever paused and had the realization that if you hadn't met or discovered a certain person, place or thing in your life, your life would be completely different?

Well, I mostly feel that way about superheroes ( comics ) music/songs/singer-song-writers, etc.

Have you ever heard of the term Lisztomania?
The translation is "the need to listen to music all the time". Or the term Musicomania? The translation is "a condition where a person's passion for music (or a song) becomes so strong, it prevents them from functioning".

Those definitions describe my relationship with music.

For example: If you think I'm going to spend my day listening to this song or that song on repeat until I memorize ALL the lyrics, background noises, the drums, the beats, the harmonies, etc. Trying to do them all simultaneously then you're absolutely correct.

Oh! You're listening to sad songs in a hot, steamy shower? Move over, I'm getting in. Oh, you know how it goes. Listening to the same sad song on replay, you know, just to make SURE it does enough damage. ( I'm being serious but also tongue in cheek )

For me, I realize it may sound weird and I don't know why this is, but melancholy music makes me happy. Maybe because often sadness can be hope-filled/a first step to hopefulness/healing, and it's comforting knowing you aren't alone in your feelings, OR maybe I'm just a masochist? You decide.

One of the greatest parts about life, hands down, is just sitting on the shower floor with the lights off with warm water hitting you as you take the sad music in. Ugh. One of the loveliest parts about living. Almost nothing compares in my view.

Music was my first love. I love music because it's the only thing that hasn't walked away from me when I needed it most. We're all addicted to something that takes the pain away, right? I don't know what I would do without music.

Which brings me to the subject of this open letter: Taylor Allison Swift.

Taylor Swift is one of the strongest women I've ever had in my life even if I've never met her.

Taylor Swift is one of the best songwriters to have ever lived.

The path she has charted not only for herself but other women, the tone she writes songs to respond to critics, the media, the public, politics, social justice, LGBTQIA rights, the slut- shaming, the underestimating women, being outspoken about writers owning their own words, love, loss, new beginnings, the questioning of her success, etc.

Taylor swift isn't just a celebrity, and her songs aren't just songs. Her music speaks to us about the struggle to stay hopeful after catastrophe, about believing in something bigger than one's self and that something better is always possible.

She is my definition of a powerful, self made, independent, inspiring, STRONG genius business woman. She is my definition of music.There isn't one song of hers I don't absolutely love and or don't relate to. She's my hero and favorite artist and she helps me get through each day with her lyrics. I owe her a lot. She sings about reality and that alone makes her so great. She takes her own pain and turns it into hope for other people and that takes courage. She's strong and her words are powerful. Taylor swift knows how to lift you up and tear you down all at once. Her music is powerful stuff.

Her music touches my soul. It's my peace when my world is falling apart, It's a hug when I need comfort, It catches my tears when I'm sad, It helps me breathe when I'm mad, It sets the mood for romance, It makes sex more intense, It inspires me when I'm uninspired.

Her music is a time capsule and a gateway to all of my memories.

Her music is the key to the most profound emotions that I've experienced throughout my entire life. And having the ability to do ALL of that with just words takes a STRONG powerful woman.

Many individuals don't tune in to music for lyrics, many people listen to music for the sound but for me, I've always been a very lyrical, wordy person.

This is why after the hell it's been because of the pandemic I about fainted when I discovered Taylor Swift was releasing THREE albums in less than a year from each other. I've been in dire need of some emotional mental and spiritual rejuvenation.

I've felt like I've been drowning and hearing that put me on cloud 9 and released so much tension.

For me Taylor Swifts music has always been a pleasure, a protector, and a passion. The words Taylor writes and sings have gave/give me strength, courage, inspiration and motivation to continuing on, to enjoy living, and to go on believing something better is right around the corner.

Her music has made me feel love when I've felt unloved.

Her music has given me a reason to embrace life when I've felt I was dying inside.

Before Taylor Swift, I never knew listening to a song could move me, and when I experienced that for the first time, when I was 13-14 going into high school dealing with major depression I felt I was alive for a reason.

Taylor Swifts music provides me with an escape and a break from the world.

Taylor Swift and her music have changed my way of life, saved my spirit, and has had a tremendous impact on me as an individual.

Everything Taylor writes my soul is screaming from within, it's like she rips it all straight from my heart, brain, and my essence and puts it on paper.

Her music covers, romance, love, parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, bullies, career ambitions, heartbreak and the list goes on and on and on.

Everything she writes it's like it was made just for me and every time I listen to one of her songs I take something new from it or when I'm in particular moods a specific verse or the entire song will align with what I am feeling at that moment even though it might be a song about something completely different from the issue i am having or the mood I am in and yet, I can connect her music to any scene in my life, any emotion, any problem, etc.

I can find a line in any one of her songs and apply it to that current situation, no matter what it is.

Have you ever found a song that saved you? When you're or when you were dealing with loss, with pain, and then you hear this certain song or this certain album and it blows your soul wide open. It becomes an anthem for your story, part of the fabric of your being, your presence, and now you can't imagine life without that song or that album and you're SO grateful the song or that album came into existence.

And If you ever feel sad, you just remember the world is 4.5 billion years old, and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as those specific songs and the songwriters who wrote them and that thought can rescue you.

Her music is hope, pure hope. It's remarkable what a song can do. It is something special. That feeling when an album sounds like the ancient books in a forgotten library that started singing their stories out loud to you because you can't come to take them home anymore, and it gives you a reason to breathe, an escape from this cruel world filled with thieves.

Every time you listen to her music it always seems like the first gift you open on Christmas, or it always feels like a hug from a loved one, or it feels like all you've ever wanted to hear, all you need. It becomes art on a canvas in your mind's eye you can't stop staring at for eternity.

And that is what a strong woman writer like Taylor Swift can do for people. If that's not the embodiment of vulnerability ( which to me equals strength ) then I don't know what is, and that's why Taylor Swift is one of the gutsiest women I know.

People haven't consistently been there for me, but taylor swift music always has.

Her music makes me feel seen, heard, and valued.

I'll end with this quote from Anime: ANGEL BEATS!

"I heard that when things were painful for her, she'd cover her ears with headphones and escape to the world of music. I tried it too. It was like everything was blown away. The vocals screamed for me. They grieved for me. The ones who put on the act of common sense were wrong. Those who cried were right. We, the lonely were more human. They screamed at the absurd, beat it down, and destroyed it. They saved me."

(P.S
With each album she releases the songs somehow align with my current real life events. She got in a relationship the SAME time I did and we are both still with that person. My mom got cancer and come to find out her mom got cancer and so many more examples. it's eerie.)