I might be okay, but I’m not fine at all

I made the pilgrimage to see Taylor Swift, to be in communion with girls with big feelings, to submit to the current of pink and purple and let go. 

From our seats we could only glean the impression of Taylor’s figure swishing across the stage, but it didn’t matter. I was surrounded by 65,000 people who sang along to “All Too Well” with the emotional recklessness of a high school breakup. I did too, because that was the order of the night—sing like we didn’t care if anyone saw how breakable we all really were. I was ecstatic.

For three hours, I could believe we all shared the same life and the same broken heart. Have their therapists asked them if they’re afraid they’re unloveable too? Did “Wildest Dreams” make them tearful because they have this gnawing suspicion they’re easy to walk away from? Did their shrieks after “Champagne Problems” mean they’re starting to believe it’s all true? 

And then, our perfect catharsis was over. Taylor disappeared beneath the stage as confetti burst across the sky, and the girls in purple, the girls who knew my heart for three delirious hours, scattered across the city like so much glitter falling off an Amazon dress. 

til the feeling’s gone forever

I started listening to Phoebe Bridgers at the start of the pandemic; consequently, so many of her songs are pegged to the lowest points of my life. Let’s rank them!

7. Garden Song
No, I'm not afraid of hard work
I get everything I want
I have everything I wanted

Almost everything.

6. Graceland Too
Said she knows she lived through it to get to this moment

Every day, as long as it’s not 90 degrees out, I swing open my kitchen door that faces the back garden, and start my coffee. As soon as I hear the first noisy bird from outside, I feel grateful. Every damn time.

5. Kyoto
I don't forgive you
But please don't hold me to it

A song about loving people that lack the capacity to care for you in the way that you need? Unrelatable.

4. Chinese Satellite
Instead I look at the sky and I feel nothing
You know I hate to be alone

When I lived and worked in the suburbs, I had a lot of trouble sleeping, so I would walk outside at 3 or 4 in the morning, and sometimes the sky was clear enough to see stars. I had such a void inside of me, but it was comforting to look up and see beautiful things that died millions of years ago.

I think I needed medication back then but alas.

3. ICU
And I get this feeling
Whenever I feel good
It'll be the last time

I don’t trust anyone to love me so I create self-fulfilling prophecies to make sure they don’t 🙃

2. Funeral
Jesus Christ, I'm so blue all the time
And that's just how I feel
Always have and I always will

I used to think that my ability to experience sadness meant I had tremendous emotional depth. Then I realized I was just drowning in a shallow pool of self-loathing. Song still makes me cry, though.

1. Moon Song
You couldn't have, you couldn't have
Stuck your tongue down the throat of somebody
Who loves you more
So I will wait for the next time you want me
Like a dog with a bird at your door

Just blow my brains out.

Folklore tracks ranked according to their emotional poignancy for a 34-year old divorcee

Is this timely? No. Am I doing it anyways? Yes.

16. seven

“Are there still beautiful things?”

This song is about childhood and that is not the traumatic period I’m currently dealing with right now.

15. invisible string

“And isn’t it just so pretty to think / all along there was some / invisible string / tying you to me”

I almost actively hate the lyrics of this song but I like the chorus so.

14. cardigan

“When you are young they assume you know nothing”

The difference between me at 34 and me at 24 is now I know I know nothing!!

13. the 1

“And if you wanted me, you really should’ve showed”

The melody is too upbeat to cry to but there are some legit lines in this.

12. the last great american dynasty

“She had a marvelous time ruining everything”

It me, except it’s been a marvelous/excruciating time.

11. august

“To live for the hope of it all / Canceled plans just in case you’d call”

This summer one of the guys I dated canceled on me and then 30 seconds later suggested we have a threesome “soon.” Major personal breakthrough: I did not have sex with him again!

10. exile

“I think I’ve seen this film before / And I didn’t like the ending”

I read Wikipedia entries for movies I’m going to see. I know this makes me a monster and I really do not care. Plus Bon Iver.

9. illicit affairs

“But it dies and it dies and it dies / A million little times”

I’m just trying to drive to work, Taylor.

8. betty

“The worst thing that I ever did / Was what I did to you”

It me, again.

7. my tears ricochet

“And if I’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes, too”

There are a few men this song reminds me of and my ex husband is not one of them.

6. mad woman

“Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy / What about that?”

I consider this a companion piece to Beyonce’s “Hold Up.” Bitches be crazy about getting gaslit by significant others.

5. epiphany

“Just one single glimpse of relief / To make some sense of what you’ve seen”

I started writing again because it’s the only way I know how to make my feelings coherent. It makes things hurt worse sometimes, but in an understandable way!

4. mirrorball

“I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try / I’m still on that trapeze / I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me”

A guy told me he liked me because he knew I’d “do anything to keep [him] horny” and I realized oh maybe that’s not flattering? Still sent him nudes though.

3. peace

“But I would die for you in secret”

I can turn anything into a reference to King Lear and I will do so here, thank you. Cordelia, darling Cordelia, says “I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.” I said that at my wedding; I was 23. When you are young you are stupid.

2. this is me trying

“And my words shoot to kill when I’m mad / I have a lot of regrets about that”

😞

1. hoax

“Stood on on the cliffside screaming, ‘Give me a reason’ / your faithless love is the only hoax I believe in”

After the initial infatuation/chemically-mediated period of a relationship, love as a conspiratorial, shared delusion is kind of brilliant? Plus, this is a crying song. I am the woman on 94 in a mom car with no kids sob-singing about faithless love and I do not care.