Thank you, Taylor, for Helping Me Be a Better Mom

posted on : May 11, 2023 posted by : swannerh

Dear Taylor,

This is me swallowing my pride and saying that I messed up royally. If only I could go back to November and tell Frugal Heather that FOMO Heather would label her the “Anti-Hero” come May, then Frugal Heather might have coughed up more than $1K per ticket to see you last weekend in Nashville or the weekend before in Atlanta. Instead, FOMO Heather is forced to live vicariously through the Instagram posts of almost all of her closest friends who actually got to see you in person this time.

But that’s okay. Since you are so fresh in my mind, rather that think about how jealous I am that I was not there in person, I thought it might make me feel better to express my gratitude to you. You are not a mother just yet, but I feel like you have been there through so much of my motherhood.

You see, you have been the soundtrack of my daughter’s life. There are not very many memories that I have of her that do not somehow have your music woven into them. I could sum up so much of her life by so many of your own Eras. You guys have grown up together.

She graduates in less than a week. The memories have been hitting hard and fast lately, and the lyrics of “Never Grow Up” play on repeat in my mind daily. I wonder if you realized when you wrote this song that it would occupy so much space in the minds of middle-age mothers everywhere who are clinging so desperately to the ones who are now so desperate to be released.

“…Oh, darlin’, don’t you ever grow up, don’t you ever grow up, just stay this little...”

I’m going to admit that when I first heard “Tim McGraw”, I thought it was cute, but never anticipated that you would be anything more than a one-hit wonder. I’m sorry. But when four year-old Campbell could sing every single word to “Teardrops on My Guitar” – all before she could spell her name – I knew that you must be special.

She became a Fearless princess as you serenaded her to “Love Story“, and you taught her that sometimes an actual real life “White Horse” was better than a shady boy on a white horse.

“…Oh, darlin’, don’t you ever grow up, don’t you ever grow up, it could stay this simple…”

You taught her that being Fifteen was complicated and that there was so much more to life than she could possibly imagine. Oh, and that giving all you have to a boy who might change his mind almost always leads to tears (thank you for that one).

“…I won’t let nobody hurt you….“

And just as school drama began to filter in, you showed her that sometimes people are just “Mean“, and that proving people wrong was often “Better than Revenge“. We cried when John broke your heart, and you taught her with “Back to December” that we all have moments that we wish that we could go back to and do differently. It was simply a part of life.

“…Won’t let no one break your heart…“

When her heart was broken for the first time, it was from you that she learned that it was possible to find love and to lose love and then to “Begin Again“….and again….and again…and again. She would also learn that the best thing to do with “Bad Blood” was just to “Shake it Off.”

“…And even though you want to…”

And as almost every child experiences, you had a little bit of a dark period with Reputation, but she learned that it’s almost always darkest before dawn, and what emerges on the other side of that darkness is often the clearest understanding of who you truly are, and that you can’t spell “awesome” without “me“.

When I sent her a link to your song after going through a rough patch, “I Forgot That You Existed,” she wrinkled her nose, because moms know nothing when you are sixteen. Months later, when she finally admitted that she had listened to the lyrics and liked them, I fought my urge to say, “I told you so.”

I’ve probably told her “You Need to Calm Down” a few hundred times. But more often than that, she’s retorted with, “No, Bruh. YOU need to calm down.” And she was probably right.

“…Please try to never grow up...”

When Covid hit, you taught her that clarity often comes when we allow ourselves to have some space and some quiet. We saw the more introspective side of you in Evermore and Folklore, and we learned that slowing down allows us to appreciate what is most important and often breeds creativity.

So many of my most precious memories with her (and even a few not so great ones, too) somehow have you intertwined among them. You were there for the countless nights that I sat outside her door as she sang every word of the Speak Now album until she sang herself to sleep. You were there for birthday parties and recitals and dance parties and even the party in my basement that I had no idea I was getting myself into (note to your future self: when your teenager asks to have a few friends over for a party, clarify the number first).

You were there for her first concert, and then again for her second. You even introduced her to the legendary Mick Jagger.

You were there for the breakups and the friend drama and the makeups and the mama drama.

“…Don’t you ever grow up….”

But what I will miss the most is having you with us for the countless hours we spent in the car together traveling back and forth to horse shows all over the country. It sometimes got a little lonely being an Uber driver, as she often curled up in the backseat of the car, headphones on and lost in her own world. Inevitably, at some point near the end of what was often a six or seven hour drive, she would get restless and would ask to play “Mom’s playlist” (the only music of hers that she would allow me to listen to) over the car speakers.

We would sing together to your music at the top of our lungs. And just for a short time, she would be my Fearless princess all over again. “It was rare, I was there (and so were you), I remember it all too well.”

And for that, I say, thank you.

As I prepare myself to say goodbye to her in just a couple of months, I am so grateful that a little piece of her will remain on my radio, and I hope that she will occasionally listen to “Mom’s playlist” and think of me. I hope that one day she will be thankful that it was you, and not Bon Jovi or Guns N’ Roses, who helped me raise her.

When I finally kiss her and tell her “You’re On Your Own, Kid” in August, I’ll cry, but then I’ll crank the volume up for the ten-hour drive back home. Because where you are, so will she be.