I used to be extremely h*rny for the past. I made sure every song I listened to took me back to pre-pandemic. I wanted to taste that sweet spot between 2012 and 2018 so badly again, and make the flavor last forever. But as of late, that sort of nostalgia has been making me ….sick? I don’t know if I’ve moved on or outgrown the saccharine taste of my former lives.
I think maybe I just don’t need it anymore.
Lately, I’ve been blooming where I’m planted. And that’s firmly rooted in the present. There is too much going on right now to waste precious brain power praying to the memory of a sweaty Saturday night in Santa Monica.
It’s not even because I like my life so much? I mean I do. But my devotion to feeling my current emotions isn’t because they’re better than they’ve ever been. But they’re definitely not worse.
Also, why did I just rhyme lol.
As someone obsessed with introspection (really just navel-gazing), I think I can definitively say I’m over the hurt. And by hurt, I mean the self-flagellation of reminiscing. It used to feel like a little treat to pick at the old wounds of toxic relationships and talk myself in circles — imagining different scenarios — living in a universe where I was still experiencing that life, and paying for it dearly. But why?? Maybe that’s something only my therapist can know.
There’s nothing to let go of if your hands were always empty to begin with. I’m just balling up my fists.
And maybe that’s why I’m having trouble getting into the new Taylor Swift album!! I can’t with the nostalgia porn anymore! About my life or anyone else’s. Her music marked certain milestones in my 20s that I am tired of re-living again and again. If she’s speaking about her current experience I’m not hearing it. Or maybe it’s just too different from mine? My boyfriend and I are not in some sort of mythical romance that takes us to dark bars at midnight where we can hide from the paparazzi. At midnight I’m asleep and he’s reading Fire & Blood on his iPad.
The threat of performing the mental gymnastics to get back to a place where I can relate to her words exhausts me. I think I now prefer the narratives of Evermore. It’s even hard for me to appreciate the celebrity of it all because we, as an audience, know so much about her life. I feel as though I can speak on Taylor Alison Swift like she is a childhood friend. I feel immense affection for her. But that doesn’t mean I have the urge to keep reading her diary.
Of course, I will listen to this album 1000 more times. I am going to a Taylor Swift party this evening! I’m sure it will grow on me…..like mold. 🙂 Maybe I just need to experience it drunk and in an Uber. There used to be no greater high than ignoring the stranger driving me to nefarious destinations, blasting music that felt like an Old Fashioned-sweet tongue in my ear, calling me names.
But do I still crave that??? (No.)
There’s an album out there right now that makes me feel things for the present moment. I don’t have to picture myself at 22 or 24 or 26 to “get there.” I’m here now, and I feel the same release absolutely sober, absolutely alone, absolutely present — no matter if I’m on my morning walk or it’s pitch black outside. I won’t tell you what it is but if you follow me on Instagram I’m sure you can guess.
I don’t need midnights. I have 9am reconciliations with my barista. I have 7pm meeting friends for dinner angst. I have a 10pm bedtime. And I feel SO MUCH for where I am now. I want to swallow it whole because I know that it will become nostalgia again soon. The feeling of now will taste so sweet in the years to come.
TLDR; You’ll love Midnights if you need it. If you don’t, there’s always Carly Rae Jepsen or The 1975.
Lately 