Taylor Swift: A Hopeful Romantic

Taylor Swift is known for many things – a singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, aficionado of cats, wine connoisseur, owner of the year 1989, the number 22 and the season of Fall… and the list can keep going on.

But one of things that I think is highly underrated, or at least a quality of hers that is highly underrated is her ability to love headfirst, fearless. Without reservation. She is not only a hopeless romantic but a hopeful romantic. 

I think it is no secret that a lot of her songs (not all, but a lot) are about love, heartbreak and relationships — something that connects our human experience — and that ever since she was a young girl with her country boots and a dream, she has been writing about finding her fairytale ending. We have seen her weave her way through heartbreak and love in the spotlight and through her master craft of song writing. We have FELT it when she has felt it, we have cried over the lyrics she has written, we have twirled in our rooms over lyrics that made HER twirl.

As a Swiftie since 2007, I have seen her go through her fair share of heartbreaks and one thing is for certain — she is definitely a Sagittarius and cancer moon just like me, but what I admire? Her ability to be so brave with her vulnerability. Swift got out of a six year relationship earlier in the year and that is enough for anyone to be jaded. I would be. I am still in the process of grieving a relationship that lasted only a year, so I couldn’t even imagine six. Where her and I differ is I can’t even think about dating again. But her? She does so fearlessly and that is a trait I hope to acquire. Vulnerability in love, especially in a world that thinks it is cool to keep your cards so close to your chest is so rare. Her and I are the same when it comes to love — it really is an all or nothing mentality and we can be complete fools when it comes to the matters of the heart.

Now we see Swift head over heels with Kelce and I cannot quite explain to you how it makes my heart warm. To see that just because something ended, it does not mean you have to shut yourself off to finding love again. That you don’t have to be cold and jaded, you don’t have to put up a wall so high that only can be seen by NASA. That you can allow yourself to be vulnerable again… that you will find someone who takes that vulnerability and returns it tenfold and does not take it for granted.

It almost feels as though Taylor is that one friend we all have that has gone through shitty relationships with shitty men and now she finally has met someone who is not only her equal but he KNOWS exactly who he has the privilege to be dating and he lets it be known. He shouts his feelings for her from the rooftops after her being with someone who would only whisper it behind closed doors. She went from an anxious love with an avoidant person (we really are twins) to a secure love. He lets her… I have to say it… he lets her be bejeweled. 

I am with the rest of you whenever I see videos of Swift and Kelce, with a cheesy grin on my face because to me, this is showing me how it looks like to love without reservation, unabashedly and proud. How to pick up your broken heart up and put it in a drawer. The way she loves is so fiercely, she dives in. From the giddy running up to him after she finished her concert, to changing the lyrics to her songs to fit him, to pointing at him throughout her songs and changing the colors of her light up bracelets to red and yellow during the surprise song of “Endgame” that clearly has a brand new meaning now — she is such a refreshing take on loving freely in this day and age. When she breaks, she breaks but when loves? She pours it all out on the line and that is something that I and many others can relate to.

Their relationship is “labyrinth” (Midnights, 2022) personified when Swift sings about the various realizations when one falls in love: the fear, the anxiety and the acceptance. I think as human, we all experience this — when we think we will never love again and then… it hits us. Slowly, surely and then all at once.

She explains it so well in 1989’s “You are In Love” when she states,” And now you understand why they lost their minds and fought the wars and why I’ve spent my whole life trying to put it into words.”

It is a never ending quest for us hopeless romantics, this endless pursuit of wanting to find our happily ever after. Through the highs and lows of it all, we just want someone who makes us feel like we can hear it in the silence, we can feel it on the way home, we can feel it with the lights off — love.

Taylor Swift never lets the lover girl inside of her die and I, too, hope that I can find it in myself to do the same even in the process of healing. 

To love, headfirst fearless.