In my memoir...

I have a chapter named "Celebrating in the Seasons" and in that chapter I have a section called "The Taylor Swift Effect".

Today felt like the EXACT right day to share this section as a preview of my book to celebrate Taylor owning her masters!

Here's the excerpt from my book, first draft, limited editing.

Doing It Broken

  Taylor Swift wrote a song about doing it with a broken heart, a song that women around the world heard upon its release and felt immediate connection with. Me included. In the song she writes and sings about a season in her life where she was literally waking up and going through the motions with a broken heart and how she acted like it was her birthday every day just to get through a day without crumbling. Taylor freaking Swift. This is a great representation for celebrating in the middle of the pain, even if you are making up the reason to celebrate. Every single day we wake up we have a reason to have woken. Whether we have connected with the reason yet or not. We are not all Taylor Swift with billionaire level purposes, but that doesn’t mean ours isn’t still an important one. Not to mention, “I Can Do It with A Broken Heart” proves that even at her level, she still must navigate and persist through pain to serve her purpose. She changed lives at every one of her tour stops for the Era’s Tour all while writing those sentiments into her next album, through a broken heart.

  No matter the pain you are pushing through, there is a purpose towards which you are pushing. Sometimes, until we connect with that purpose, we just need to latch on to a reason to celebrate that day, every day, even if we are grasping at straws, or making it up as we go. I lived that season. Making it up as I went from the moment I graduated from high school until the summer I was celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary. I had lots to celebrate but I was simply swinging desperately from one reason for celebration to the next reason, grasping for each one and holding onto it until I could reach the next celebration. This accidentally served me well because I was actively looking for silver linings in these years. The level of which I celebrated varied, the financial burden of celebrating at points was tricky to navigate, but we managed. We managed, God provided, lessons were learned, and memories were made, so many memories were made.

Fix Your Focus

  I was swinging from one reason for celebration to the next. Like a dazzling Tarzan-like version of Jane. The parties, the planning, the way my neurodivergent brain thrived bouncing from theme to theme, craft to craft, event to event, project to project, purchase to purchase, until all of the swinging ripped my arms right off my body, still dangling from the branches while my body plummeted to the bottom of the jungle floor. It was in this season of life where my very last strings of competency and joy were no longer holding me together. I was getting complacent in my life, and it was exactly then that I began to breed contempt in my life for those around me whose celebrations looked the way I wanted mine to be. In my season of swinging from celebration to celebration, somewhere along the way I had stopped holding onto the thing we were celebrating, and instead I was holding on to the validation and praise my fabulous celebrations were obtaining for me. What started as a genuinely joy filled survival mechanism transformed right before my eyes into a machine of doom and gloom. The stress, the exhaustion, the expense, the inability to not compare to the celebrations of those around us. It all took the joy right out of each reason.

 My focus had shifted, and it was on the neighbor’s yard, so I was not properly maintaining my own yard, simply trying to keep up with the Jones, (whoever they are). I needed to fix my focus on the things that I was supposed to be focused on all along. I had set out in this celebratory trajectory as a scared new mom to hold tightly onto the causes for celebration and give me something joyful to cling to through the trials of being a young, unprepared mother. Somewhere on that road I used the celebrations to do the same thing, but I was seeking different goals in what registered on the joy meter. These new goals were rooted more in envy than joy, thus the joy meter stopped climbing but the excuses to celebrate kept multiplying. This only perpetuates a cycle of disappointment and comparison. Focusing on the wrong goals nearly cost me everything, and it did not really gain me any friends either, just a bunch of people who wanted to be invited to my parties. Major fail. 

The Taylor Swift Effect

  I mentioned Queen Tay-Tay earlier in this chapter and now I am going to talk about her again, for an entire subsection. Taylor Swift and I have been on a journey together. One she knew nothing of, and one I only became aware of recently. Through the stages and seasons of both of our lives we have been on our own journeys of course, but her journey has played an interesting part in my journey. What I have come to affectionately call, The Taylor Swift Effect. In this section I will detail my fan journey, in eras (stages), seasons, and triggers. Get ready to hold on, it is going to be a wild ride, Darling!

My T.S. Era’s

My Swiftie Era Began: Taylor Swift (2006) I entered my Swiftie era when her first album dropped. I was already a mother, my oldest had just entered preschool, I was actively making decisions towards growing our future, engaged, planning a wedding, and shifting my employment to encourage ease of purchasing a home for my little family to begin to bloom in. I remember thinking how impressive it was that this young girl, 7 years my junior, was taking the music industry by storm and I loved that the future of music was growing to include musicians like her, that my daughter could look up to as she got older.

I was not spending much money on music back then, but I loved every one of the songs from that album that were released as singles, and I’ve come to appreciate the additional songs over the years as well. Afterall, before meeting my husband, I had been “Tied Together with a Smile” plenty of times before, I had my own “Picture to Burn” (or a few) from when I was a teenager, I had felt many  “Cold” shoulders from mediocre boys through all of school, and I had always felt on the “Outside”, assuming I would be heading into my future a lonely single lady looking for  “A Place in This World”. In this season though, I had found my best friend and the partner I would choose to do life with instead. Despite my launching into adulthood going less than stellar, I was deciding to  “Stay Beautiful” even if I did not believe it yet.

My Fearless Era: Fearless (2008)   When her second album dropped, I was in the middle of so much new, entering my own personal  “Fearless” era. I was settling into my roles as wife and mother of two daughters (roles I never imagined playing), now feeling capable and empowered because I was doing this life, for the first time, with a partner I trusted. I had survived  “Fifteen” which was a feat in and of itself. I had stressed over more than a few boys in high school. I had navigated post-graduation (2001) in a chaotic and grieving America, yet somehow, I had begun my own “Love Story”.

All through school I felt like the girl who was always a good, dependable friend, who knew the real them, but never got picked to go to the dance with. Hearing this album, for the first time as I was settling into life, newly married to the boy who did see me, who rode in on his  “White Horse” (really a beat-up blue Corsica) and did pick me, and who did appreciate me as a best friend AND lover, all felt full circle for me. Finally, someone had said  “You Belong with Me”. He had been there to help me  “Breathe”  through some hard shit already. The days of asking boys to  “Tell Me Why” and telling them  “You’re Not Sorry” were in my past. My future was going to be filled with telling one incredible guy every day that “The Way I Love You” is magical and I will love you  “Forever and Always”. I was living  “The Best Day” on repeat as my little family kept growing. This season was filled with  “Change”. I had no idea how hard life would soon get. 

My SAHM Era: Speak Now (2010) I was settling into life as a mother of three by the time this album dropped. Embarking on my first holiday season as a stay-at-home mom, feeling a little lost in my own outcasted and lonely corner of the world. I was speaking plenty, but mostly only to my kids, and they did not reliably listen. The pressures of parenting and the fading of the honeymoon stage had me worrying how long my husband would still be  “Mine” if I didn’t figure my shit out. It had become a regular occurrence that our arguments let “Sparks Fly” even if they were the wrong kind of sparks to be flying less than 5 years into our marriage. I wanted to go “Back to December” when I was still growing our third daughter and life seemed easier.

My oldest was quickly approaching tweendom, at eight and a half, this album reached into her and grabbed ahold of her soul, immediately transforming her into a Swiftie herself. I have fond memories of blasting this album with her, belting out the lyrics alongside  “Mean”  with her while painting her room to give her bedroom a big girl makeover. I was desperately trying to craft  “The Story of Us” to share with everyone else, reflecting only perfection and hiding the struggles we were living through in our marriage. I was feeling like everything was spinning so fast around me and I wanted to press pause on life so I could catch my breath. Praying intensely to make sure my girls  “Never Grow Up” and pleading with God to keep us living in a happy  “Enchanted”  little family bubble together forever. I was feeling my marriage threatened and it had me thinking I needed to find a solution  “Better Than Revenge” and I was also hopeful my kids were oblivious and  “Innocent” through it all. I was “Haunted” by the potential of my marriage ending in divorce, with a “Last Kiss”.

This was the last of Taylor’s albums that I consciously appreciated for a while. Over the next few years, I struggled with post-partum anxiety, rage, and depression, which stuck around and morphed into normal depression and anxiety. I was living a new normal and feeling the least connected to my body, my true self, or my true voice since becoming a mother. I was reconnected with a church community for the first time in over five years, and I was feeling a need to fit into the mold of a good, traditional stay at home mother and wife… whatever that mold is. I was craving connection, and an identity separate of wife and mother, but I was lost as to how to attain them. I was desperate for the days when I felt like a success,  “Long Live”  the glory days.

My Rage Era: Red (2012) I was living my own personal  “Red”  era by the time this album dropped. I was living in a minefield of triggers, perched up on my high horse, oblivious to the fact that the album had even dropped. Consumed with my church life, I was listening to the local Christian radio station only. I was a year past my adult baptism, and I was showing extraordinarily little fruit of that decision because I was doing so much well-intended, but wrong, and severely lacking quality connection. I was living in a state of perpetual judgement, surrounded by people I was busy trying to convince that I was worthy and holy. I was trying to find my people in the church community, and it was making me feel anything but a  “State of Grace”. I was sliding down a slippery, “Treacherous” slope towards a conservative Stepford wife existence.

My husband and I were in a tricky season, lacking connection, lacking intimacy; we were lacking trust in each other at that time. I was insecure, lacking in authentic faith, and as much as I wish I did not, I remember it “All Too Well”. I was staring down the barrel of what felt like a  “22” but really it was just my 30th birthday. The days of being young, optimistic, and excited about our future together seemed to be far in the rearview mirror now. Before getting married, we had both declared being unwilling to divorce. We had never planned to break up at all, let alone say  “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, yet somehow in this season I remember the D-word being uttered. I was desperate, I plead  “Stay, Stay, Stay”  and after a long, exhausting, and emotional discussion we were communicating again, better than ever before. Back on  “Holy Ground” in our marriage, grateful to have avoided a  “Sad Beautiful Tragic” outcome. In the months and years that followed, I was hearing an inner dialogue replay from our discussion that evening. It was of us debating back and forth, which of us was actually  “The Lucky One” in our relationship. Everything changed for us that night. I listened to all but three of the songs on this album for the first time well after that season in my life ended.

My Legacy Era 1989 (2014) I appreciated this Taylor era in proximity to my two oldest girls listening. My second daughter officially got bitten by the Swiftie bug at the age of seven with the release of  “1989”. My oldest daughter was approaching thirteen and she ushered her sister into the fandom with dance parties. The summer before this album dropped, my last paternal grandfather passed away, leaving my grandmother a widow after nearly 70 years of marriage. His death created a  “Blank Space” in all of our lives. Funerals have a way of putting certain things in perspective. His funeral was no exception. It had me thinking back over the years, generationally in my family. I was seeing things in a new way. I was recognizing a pattern in the “Style” of relationship that many of my familial relationships had become. Things I would spend the next five years trying to unpack until I could eventually begin to  “Shake It Off” entirely. For my husband, it had him thinking of our own family legacy. He softened to the idea of trying for a fourth baby, as our relationship had only been strengthening over the last few years. We decided quickly to try again. When this album released, right before Halloween that year, we had just announced our fourth pregnancy. I was trying to stay clear of all relationships with  “Bad Blood”  because I was incredibly sick that entire pregnancy. I had to take care of my well-being as a priority.

Never in my “Wildest Dreams”  would I have anticipated having daughters, but I should have been teaching  “How You Get The Girl” seminars because, we found out that winter that our last baby would be a fourth daughter. We all excitedly awaited her arrival, my three older daughters all taking turns bonding with the belly, I could not help but think nightly that  “This Love” is amazing. My house was mostly  “Clean”  and I was nesting super hard, despite feeling sick much of the time. I was trying not to miss a beat as my SAHM load was at maximum capacity. I was beginning to realize that I was so wrapped up in being mom, wife, and daughter, that I was forgetting who I was, but back then I did not yet know this was where I was. I was trying to convince myself that everything was going fine, even though I felt a little like Alice in  “Wonderland” not sure what to expect next. Putting on a happy face became a regular occurrence in this season of my life, secretly inside I felt scared of the future.

My Pit Climbing Era Reputation (2017) In the 3 years between the last album release and the release of  “Reputation” so much had changed. In our lives. In the world. This album dropped the day after my second daughter turned ten and, in her eyes, it was like a personal birthday gift from Taylor Swift. Her Swiftie heart grew three sizes that day. I on the other hand had been through the year from Hell and my patience was at an all-time low. I was at an all-time low. I think my Swiftie heart shrunk 3 sizes with this album release and a hard shell slowly began to form around the Swiftie inside me. I have something to admit,  “…Ready For It?” In 2017 I was ridiculously jealous of Taylor Swift and her big, fabulous life. She was still looking for the one who would make her feel loved and seen, all while living her best life, and I was sick of it. I needed her to find her “End Game” because the drama always surrounding her was working my last nerve.

In hindsight, I know it had absolutely nothing to do with Taylor, but I was triggered by her. Her voice, her music, her name. The more I dug into my own grief journey, the more easily I felt triggered. I was quickly growing over it all as far as Taylor Swift was concerned.  “I Did Something Bad” and I basically ignored this album for years. I had no time to care about her or this album, “Don’t Blame Me” I was in the fight of my life, in a very “Delicate” place of survival, drowning in grief. Ironically, her energy in this album is pretty on point for where I was at in life in this season. I was hurting, broken, and constantly saying, “Look What You Made Me Do” to everyone around me, transferring all accountability and projecting my pain onto those around me by the time the holiday season was in full swing. Hurt people, hurt people and  “So It Goes”  predictably that my relationships were disappearing, and my reputation was slipping to an all-time low. I was anything but “Gorgeous”  and if I could have escaped my life with no repercussions in a  “Getaway Car” by the time this album was released, I would have. I was forgetting to let God be the  “King Of My Heart”  and it was apparent. Christmas Day of that year is my least favorite Christmas memory ever. I was a mess screaming  “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”  at my family, mere hours after opening presents to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  “Call It What You Want” but I called it an Unholy Hot-Mess Express. By the time we were celebrating “New Year’s Day” I knew it was time for change.

My Self-Love Era Lover (2019)  I was no longer living in a pit, I had been transformed over the last year into a cup, a vessel for the glory and goodness of God; I was still figuring out how not to be triggered by this woman’s existence. I was filling my own cup finally, and I was reaping rewards in my life and in my relationships, but I was still learning about the value in controlling my own joy meter to keep my cup from getting shook up and spilled so easily. I was in my self-discovery season, on the heels of my most difficult years. I was reconnecting with my authentic self, and I was looking into the mirror at the reflection of myself in this season, regularly thinking to myself “I Forgot That You Existed”  girl! Some days it was declared in annoyance at the reflection of the Basic Becky in the mirror, some days it was declared in youthful, excitement, and with grace from Saint Lynn looking back at me from in the mirror. 

I was also navigating a “Cruel Summer” of my own, knowing it was the last summer before my first launching summer. This was our last summer of memory making before it all changed on us. The next summer I would be celebrating my oldest daughter’s high school graduation and preparing to launch her to college and into her future. Any parent who has done this knows it is a cruel double-edged sword between being proud, nostalgic parents, excited about their future, and being sad, grieving parents, looking at day-to-day life without them. I was in a wonderful place with my husband, my  “Lover” and I were in synchronized bliss. On a personal level, I was fighting inner demons with the patriarchy. I was letting myself feel frustration with “The Man”  for the first time, and I was finally recognizing the many disadvantages my femininity had cost me. I was angry I had to choose family over career, because the world is not designed for a woman to thrive at both family and career.

I could see a future where my kids were less reliant on me, and because of the choice I made to stay home to raise them, I had lost footing in the career world and was not sure where that left me once they were all launched. “The Archer”  in me was growing weary and worried that I had no direction to soar in once my kiddos no longer needed me to be as hands on in their lives. I had always been so free-spirited as a child, yet adult responsibility had grounded me so long I needed to figure out how to fly on my own again. My husband was being really encouraging, telling me to try things and explore different business ideas. I fell in love with him again over and over in this season as I thought to myself a lot,  “I Think He Knows”. He did know. He knew I needed to figure out how to love myself again. He knew there was so much to love about me, and so much potential in me but I could not see anything he saw. I thought I had squandered my potential to stay at home parenting instead. In this season I knew he was my soulmate, with zero doubt. If I had it to do over again, I would have married him with  “Paper Rings” no question.

Most of 2019 felt like I was going to endure a  “Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts” because of all the little difficulties I was experiencing this year while trying to discover, love, and heal myself all at the same time. I kept telling myself it was worth it, and when I would look in the mirror I would insist to my reflection  “Soon You’ll Get Better”. There was no “False God” needed, my Savior was keeping me on track as long as I remembered to set the tone and have the foresight to seek the still small whisper. When I found myself enraged over the latest paper cut, I would whisper inside,  “You Need to Calm Down” because I was trying with everything inside me to keep focused on my quest. Each little victory left me an  “Afterglow” that I would cling to until my next small victory. I was living on a rollercoaster that year, rediscovering the things that lit me up, and diving deep into all the things “Me!” I was even finally diving into the hardest stuff. My husband was an enormous support through this. I was regularly thinking that  “It’s Nice To Have A Friend”, even if the only friend I felt close to at the time was my husband, it was the best and most consistent support I could have asked for. I was slowly trying to blossom a few new friendships again separate of him. Closing out 2019 I felt like I was truly walking in glorious  “Daylight”  finally, after years on the bottom of a cold dark pit.

My Full Cup Era Folklore (2020) By the time this album dropped it was getting easier for me to keep my cup full, and though Taylor was still a major trigger for me, I was considering ways to begin building a writing legacy of my own and pour back into the world. I was at a personal peak in life, despite preparing to move my oldest into college for the first time, in the middle of a pandemic. “The 1”  thing that was trying to bring me down in 2020 was Covid-19. Covid closed the world down for quarantine that spring on the day my third daughter turned ten. She came home from school that day scared about the extended spring break we were getting due to quarantine, and sad about the cancellation of her big sleepover birthday festivities thanks to the pandemic. When it continued for more than two weeks, my oldest grew increasingly depressed by the cancellation of all the things that the last half of Senior year had previously been full of. My second Swiftie was in a weird stage of teendom that isolation from the lockdown only enhanced. My baby was missing her new friends from preschool, the first non-sister friends she had ever had. Tears were streaming, from all directions, for all different kinds of reasons, and my best consolation was to let them all cry and wipe the tears with the sleeves of my  “Cardigan”. 

I was focused on a website for a business vision I had received. I had begun building it at the beginning of lockdown. I had been procrastinating putting the idea into action for months because I did not know anything about real website design. When I was trauma schooling all my kids at once, it suddenly seemed like the exact right time to begin another impossible task. I had been building the website for nearly 4 full months when this album came out and I was definitely working towards a purpose that was still being revealed to me. Many believe there are no more truly incredible generational companies, that we have seen  “The Last Great American Dynasty” but, while the world was in a lockdown, I was busy brewing up a plan to build a Dazzling Dynasty. While we all felt like we were existing in  “Exile”  separated from those outside our home, sorrows streaming from our eyes while we binged streaming services to distract ourselves, I found a way to help  “My Tears Ricochet” by treating my broken season like a  “Mirrorball”, and retracting light from all the broken pieces of myself. My goal in doing so was to create a truly, beautifully dazzling display of what you can be on the other side of an intentional quest to prioritize your care.

I had created a method I was using,  “Seven”  simple steps, over and over again I ascended the steps, ensuring I was filling my cup first. By “August”  I was actively, intentionally taking time for myself and though I was far from perfect, I was genuinely telling my family that  “This Is Me Trying”. Flawed, basically still broken, but being glued together with gold a little more each day. I was not participating in any “Illicit Affairs” but, to an outsider, it may have looked that way. Every evening there was something pulling me out of like clockwork once the kids were winding the down for the night. Like an  “Invisible String” pulling me out the door and down the street every single night. It was not a person; it was a thing that I was being pulled out of my house to do every night. Some may think it makes me a  “Mad Woman” that I enjoy going for a run, or sneaking out to the gym daily, but in 2019 I’d had an  “Epiphany” and realized that physical activity like a run, or some time in the gym, is actually a mental sanctuary for me. I could find “Peace”  in my head with great ease when working out or running. I was able to only focus on myself, and I was benefiting. Five days after this album came out, I completed my first 5K distance run, the evening after I moved my oldest into her first college dorm. It was no  “Hoax”, just plain old mental sanctuary that I looked forward to. Taylor was not even on my radar at all as I headed into fall. I would come to appreciate this album, but it would take a few years before I would listen to it for the first time.

My Dazzling Era Evermore (2020)   This album came out four days before my 38th birthday. Taylor Swift was a bigger trigger than ever before, my second Swiftie daughter was growing increasingly obsessed, ecstatic about the rerecord announcement and I was feeling the financial pressure of college for my oldest approaching. The thought of Taylor making more money off rerecording her entire music collection was annoying to me, especially ahead of the second new album that would drop that same year. To say that in this season of my life, the drama surrounding the rights to the master recordings of her music collection seemed an awful lot like  “Champagne Problems” to me, would be downplaying it.

We were financially needing me to have an income, so when the kids all went back to school in the fall, including my youngest, and I had no kids at home for part of my day for the first time in a decade, I went out and got a job. I had gotten a one in a million, perfect for my mom taxi schedule, well paying, new job, only to have to quit it eight weeks later because my kids were ordered back to virtual schooling until January and my new employer had no work from home solution to offer me. If I could not show up to the office, I would not be able to keep my job. Unemployed again, I was feeling worthless about my financial contribution to our home. We were desperately needing me to bring in a second income now, more than ever as prices for everything had begun climbing. I doubled down on my dazzling mission and website.

The Pandemic Holidays were approaching, and though I was feeling financially stressed, I was excited about my new dazzling mission, and I was entering my Dazzling Era, having launched my Dazzling District website on December first of that year. I was just waiting for the world to think my business idea was brilliant and I knew a  “Gold Rush” would commence towards my bank account. I was no longer feeling down in the dumps about the holidays like I had been the previous year, saying things like  “ ‘Tis the Damn Season” at holiday gatherings just trying to  “Tolerate It”. This year was different, the holidays were filled with  “Happiness” thanks to the extremely decreased number of merry making tasks I had to tackle. I felt so light, like a discarded saltwater taffy wrapper blowing down the boardwalk at  “Coney Island” kind of light. Once Upon a time,  “A Cowboy Like Me” has been known to make the holidays way too complicated in years past, details so intricate that I may have had people looking for real reindeer at my holiday events. Quarantine Christmas left way less details for this Chief Merry Maker to consider. 

So,  “Long Story Short”, when this album came out, I was unimpressed and wholly uninterested, which really ended up being a shame because ultimately this album became an instant favorite once I gave it a listen. I just wasn’t ready for it when Taylor was ready to give it to me, days before my birthday, like a personal gift to little old me. I needed  “Closure” before I was ready to receive it. I needed to be a little removed from this vulnerable season I was in; creatively vulnerable and financially vulnerable. In time it would become one of my top five Taylor Swift albums for  “Evermore”. 

My Reawakening Era Midnights (2022) In the nearly two years between “Evermore” and the release of this album I had been working my writing, creating, and branding efforts as a full-time gig around my family obligations. I had been floating through life on my new, dazzling autopilot and I was existing in some sort of  “Lavendar Haze”, writing, creating, and branding to the will of the mission I had been given. I had begun actively considering the possibility that I was the  “Anti-Hero” in my story. That I needed to better activate my own hero powers. This album is responsible for softening the bitter, hard shell I had plastered around the Swiftie trapped inside of me, but it didn’t begin softening it until after solidifying it with one final coating of volcanic rock. 

This album came out right as my second daughter was settling into her freshman year of high school and my oldest daughter was in her 3rd year of college, living in another state full-time for the first time. Our third daughter was having a rough year in middle school (aren’t all middle school years rough though?), and my baby was in second grade already. I was in my reawakening era, trying to grow a business and a brand in line with this reawakening and dazzling version of me. I was in the middle of writing this book, and I was still staying home (instead of working full-time contributing financially), because my husband and I had both agreed that this book, my brand, and the vision God gave me for Dazzling District was worth getting prioritized in this season of life. My bank account disagreed. I had been investing time and energy into my vision for Dazzling District, but it felt a little like  “Snow on the Beach”  in the middle of a summer vacation, disappointing. I was working on my vision, but all my effort was not translating into financial gain. It was a frustrating time in my life. It felt like God had given me an enormous assignment I couldn’t begin to handle, and then said,  “You’re on Your Own, Kid” before walking off. I was losing clear direction.

My high school freshman got on the pre-sale list for Era’s Tour tickets and when I went to surprise her with tickets as a belated birthday present, I realized that I couldn’t even afford two tickets in the nosebleeds of the closest tour stop, hours away. I was hoping to buy three so I could take my two resident Swiftie daughters, and instead I learned I could barely afford one of them to impossibly go alone. I was heartbroken. I was shattered. I was enraged. I cried tears as dark and warm on my cheeks as  “Midnight Rain” and then I got mad. I spewed a whole muck of disgusting rage fueled things and her name was no longer spoken without conflict for months.  “Question…?” Was I wrong? Yes. Was I willing to pull some  “Vigilante Shit” to get tickets to a tour stop? Yes. Was I  “Bejeweled” and privileged enough to pull a magic trick like that off in my real life? No.

My brain was instantly a “Labrinth” replaying all of my angry, jealous, rage fueled rants about her in my head. I considered that my misfortune may have been my  “Karma” for being such a judgy green monster, but the monster was a master of rage and it was still inside of me and every now and again the  “Sweet Nothings” in my joy center would get replaced by the ranting of the rage fueled green  “Mastermind”. Over time, hearing my second born Swiftie play this album on repeat ultimately began wearing away at the judgy green monster. This album planted Taylor prominently back on my radar moving into 2023. I was officially curious again. It was an exceptionally dazzling album.

My Full Swiftie Era TTPD (2024)  If you would have told me at the very start of 2024 that this would be the year that I became engulfed in Taylor Swift’s entire musical library, rereleased albums and all, I would have laughed in your face. Like ugly, deep, snort-filled, awkward laugh, right in your face. It was the absolute last thing I would have expected to end up on my 2024 BINGO card, but alas when she started teasing for  “The Tortured Poets Department” I could not fight the curiosity. It was like my intuition had been in on a secret that I would only discover, on April 19th, 2024, when I arrived home from dropping kids off and promptly started to listen to the surprise double-album drop… which I had predicted. I’m getting ahead of myself again.

First, let’s just say, in the 18 months since the  “Midnights” album release, my faith was being tested. Big time tested. I was feeling “Down Bad” thanks to financial strain like I had not known my entire adult life, with no solution in sight, except faith in the mission. Faith in the Dazzling vision I felt I had been shown. Faith in the assignment for peace that I had been given. Or was it not faith at all? What if it was delusion instead? I was still wrestling with this internal debate. As 2024 started, I knew that I was in the middle of a season where I was leveling up for the first time in my personal Quest to Dazzling. I was in my first rest, review, and reapplication process since creating the process and methods and it was more challenging than I had imagined. I figured, having the steps and the foresight to walk them in the correct order would go more smoothly than it did. It was better than the first blind attempt to ascend while I was still constructing the steps, but it wasn’t easy. I imagined it feeling easier and going more smoothly, but through it all, God was providing. Exactly enough, and always on time. Some of the most miraculously coordinated provision that even my creative ass couldn’t have written. I was feeling miraculously confirmed in the assignment He had given me, time and again, in miracle after miracle, finding peace where logic says fear alone should live, on the road to write this book.

By Spring, I had this  “Fresh Out the Slammer” kind of feeling about life, like now that the sun was shining on me, anything was possible. It had been years since I’d left the pit thinking. I had been living my life as a vessel for 5 years, focusing energy, means, and grace on taking care of me, guilt free. I had again navigated one of the more challenging seasons in my life, and experienced the biggest miracle I had ever witnessed, to date. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was going well. I was looking forward to a summer vacation because our finances, though not in an exceptional state, were much improved and financially we were back in a place where it felt safe to get away for a family escape. It had been 3 years since we had been family vacationing with all four of our daughters. On the last trip we had enjoyed a stay in Hilton Head at a vacation home for an extended weekend after spending most of a week with my father and stepmom in  “Florida!!!” We had enjoyed our trip then, and were in need of another escape weekend, with just the six of us again, so I was planning a Jersey Shore family vacation this time.

A younger, less healed me would have struggled to take any kind of vacation after the financial trials we had just come through. A younger, more controlling me, stuck in a scarcity mindset, would have felt  “Guilty as Sin” for spending even a dollar on another vacation, but I had committed to leaving the scarcity mindset behind. I was no longer going to deny the ability for God to take care of me and my family, to provide for a life and a vision that He anointed me with. I felt empowered in my assignment with even more conviction on the other side of the miracles He had worked in my life in the previous seasons. I had wasted so many hours worrying, stressing, wracking my brain, and problem solving in the past, trying to fix my own problems, and it wound up all being in vain. Most of the energy and time that I had committed to the problems that needed solving was completely wasted. None of it contributed to the eventual solutions in the slightest. Why ever would I waste anymore time denying the assignment? I was ready to stand on a hill somewhere and shout to the world, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”  I felt like I had experienced another epiphany kind of moment, were suddenly all the trials, all the delays in my execution of the vision, all the continued struggle as I ascended to the next level of my Dazzling Quest, all of it made sense again.

When I began writing this book, I had assumed that I had already lived everything that I was supposed to include while writing it. I was so wrong. On April 19, 2024 it all made sense. I had come home to continue writing, pushing towards a goal of having the first draft finished so I could take a printed copy for my oldest daughter when we were with her on our vacation. After just the first few songs, by track 3, I was excited. It slowly began clawing into my soul in a dazzling way, once I had started listening. By track 7 I was feeling inspired by the energy I felt filling my workspace. When track 9 began I was bouncing out of my skin through to the end of track 11, feeling as if electricity was running through my veins. When “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”  came on, I felt a wave of representation rush over me. It was a magical feeling. All the complicated feelings I’d had in the past for this woman just disintegrated in the opening few lines of that song. For the first time in over a decade, I was identifying very personally with one of her songs. I could feel “The Alchemy” in the air that morning. As the final song of the first album,  “Clara Bow” was beginning I was deeply dug into my laptop writing. Instantly I knew it would be a song I loved forever, but as the lyrics “This town is fake, but you’re the real thing. Breath of fresh air through smoke rings. Take the glory, give everything, promise to be, dazzling.” came out of my speakers the first time, my head shot up so fast to look at the screen that I’m surprised I didn’t give myself whiplash. It was as if the conclusion song for the  “TTPD” was written directly for my mission and my vision. An unofficial anthem song, gifted to me by the one and only Taylor Swift. Maybe, my biggest constant trigger through my entire initial quest to dazzling and the vast majority of my second ascension up the staircase. As if Taylor herself was saying to me “Imgonnagetyouback”. I may have had opinions, many unfair, many uneducated, ones about her over the years, but ultimately, she got the last laugh because with one single song, she stole my fan heart right out of my chest, and I became a full-fledged Swiftie, loud and proud about it now. It was so full circle for me. I did not get my first draft finished on time, but I was not interested in rushing the writing. I made peace with the missing of that goal, and I proceeded with my vacation. It was magically divine. It was perfectly aligned. It was an absolutely dazzling trip. About a week after we returned home from that family vacation, I realized the Taylor Swift Effect on my life, and then I immediately knew this section of the book would need to materialize. This was never a section I ever imagined including before April 2024, however, it is such a relevant fiber running through my entire adult life.

This double album drop hit so many little personal God-instances it was absolutely wild to me. As I listened, this woman who once was my personal  “Albatross” was singing songs that gripped me deep in my soul, of themes that felt personal, vulnerable and familiar to me. It was like deep diving into my soul with an album packed with God-instance moments that felt hidden in the lyrics just for me. Starting with the fact that I had predicted it intuitively. I had been seeing some fan theory on social media about the potential for a surprise 2nd album announcement when TTPD was released, mirroring her 2020 surprise double album year. I heard this theory and had a feeling. Personally, I was having a year that mirrored 2020 but in a leveled-up sense. I had this feeling Taylor may have been experiencing something similar. I asked my resident Swiftie her thoughts on it, she wasn’t really buying it as much more than crazy fan theory. I told her I could see its potential. Between the Era’s tour and her new Superbowl caliber relationship, she may have a lot to share creatively. I thought, maybe  “Cloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus” might agree with me, but not my girl. So, if you are not a Swiftie you may be asking, “How Did it End?” as I’ve already said it was a double album, but it was better than an announcement of a second album.

I was happy to wake up on April 19th 2024 to have my daughter confirm exuberantly that I had been right. Taylor had leveled it all the way up by not just announcing a double release, but rather by releasing this double album hours apart, with thirty-one magnificent songs. I couldn’t help but personally correlate that with the virtuous woman, the Proverbs thirty-one. Every song on this album sounded to me like she had done her work as a woman, she had gone through shit of her own, she had endured her own traumas despite being blessed with her financial freedom, she had processed it all and come out of it all more dazzling. Hollywood had once felt “So High School” to her it seems, and instead of digging her feet into it while shouting “I Hate It Here”  it sounds like she laid it all on the recording studio floor with these songs. Not that she would not have more to write or produce, simply that she was ready to leave the stories of her past behind her with the release of these songs. Songs jam packed with healing, with self-love, with growth, with feminine rage, with power, with dazzling! By the time she was singing  “thank you aIMee” I was thinking, thank you Taylor, thank you for the soundtrack to my dazzling feminine self-discovery journey.

In this season, no longer do  “I Look in People’s Windows” wondering if their celebrations are better, or if their success comes with more ease. I’m no longer concerned with anything other than “The Prophecy” I heard the still small voice whisper into my soul at the start of my Dazzling Quest. I have said goodbye to  “The Bolter” inside that wants to run from my mission, from my purpose. The one where I ignite a Dazzling Spark that ignites across the nation, infiltrating the whole damn world with the power of the still small voice, the tools to turn yourself into a vessel, and the steps to abundantly overflow the most magical stuff into the world. Taylor has given women the soundtrack, to almost every era we could face. I hope you let my testament, “The Book of Dazzling”, be  “The Manuscript” you turn to when you need reminding that you have magic and a purpose inside you, and you can live life dazzling right in the middle of your everyday life.

Do the Dazzling Thing

  We all have hard things happening in our life and we all have difficulties yet to face. We cannot be prepared always for everything. We cannot really anticipate the trails until we are in them. To do the dazzling thing, is to live life intentionally for the benefit of keeping your cup overflowing. We don’t all have the means to escape on a pilgrimage to find ourselves. We can’t all process our feelings, and traumas, and blessings, and gifts by creating an epic library of fabulous songs. But, we do all need to go on a pilgrimage to find ourselves. We do all need to process our feelings, traumas, blessings, and gifts. If we live our lives in a way that promotes abundantly overflowing, instead of depleting, then when the hard stuff comes, when the seasons filled with trials are upon us, and our cracks start to appear, we can more easily slap a little gold on the cracks, and replenish before we deplete further, or run dry.

End of excerpt

If you made it to here, you're a real one! Hopefully you are even more excited about my memoir being published. If so, take a peek at THE BOOK page here on the website and sign up to get insider info through my publishing journey. Now a message just for Taylor, in case her eyes grace this EVER, at ANY point, for ANY reason:

Congratulations Taylor Swift! I am grateful for your entire music library, and the journey we took together, separately. I am so happy for you that you reacquired your masters! As a creative, I have respect for the desire to own all of your creative rights, this truly is something to celebrate! There are a few things we have in common, that I find amusing and like to think connects us in some cosmic sense.

1.) We are both Archer's and Millennials; I was born December 15th, 1982.

2.) I have ties to PA and Cleveland, Ohio. I call one home my whole life, and the other has my heart when it comes to sports. Plus, my sweet oldest daughter currently calls the other home. I actually know someone from Cleve. Hts. that knows Travis too!

3.) I don't have any tattoo's either. You don't put a bumper sticker on a Lamborghini, right?

4.) We are both truly visionaries, with ideas so big they feel impossible to others, yet inevitable to us.

5.) We've lived parallel era's and have both built up great legacies and fortune. Mine in children and years of marriage, yours of vast musical babies and wealth. I hope this next season swaps our results, allowing for you to amass the soulmate, best friend, lasting love and the growing family, you've longed for, and I would be tickled pink if mine allowed a fraction of your wealth and fame.

Thank you for your musical genius & creative dedication!

~ Live Dazzling

Rebecca Jackson