1.13 | Invisible

to Read (
Words)
 Baby let me love you, let me want you.

It's March 2025 and Taylor Swift is an international pop star, global sensation, 11 albums deep into her career, generally about as far from being invisible as you could possibly be. But I think she got to this place by being incredibly vulnerable in her song writing. She has given us the gift of sharing all parts of her and allowed us as listeners to be able to relate.

When I think back to the teen years I think that everyone experienced the feelings of being invisible on some level. There is this idea that if people could just see who you really are that everything would just work out perfectly. In some ways I still hold this thought, that if the people around me could really see me then everything would be okay. Maybe everything would be more than okay, maybe my relationships could be a "beautiful, miracle, unbelievable." It just feels like by now I should have made it to a place where I no longer feel invisible. 

Cultivating meaningful relationships can be tough though. I guess in some ways it's nice to know that even the Taylor Swift knows what that feels like. Like we've really all been through it haven't we. The loneliness of feeling invisible is maybe the hardest part. But in Taylor's very first album she wrote a song that communicates that you are not alone. She said I've been here, and look where she is now. It might feel like a lot but she is a testament that you can get through it and there is more on the other side.

And you just see right through me but if you only knew me, we could be a beautiful miracle, unbelievable, instead of just invisible.

I love Taylor Swift’s music and have a deep curiosity about who it is so meaningful to so many people. If you have any thoughts about this song in particular please share it in the comments below so that me and the Swiftie community that finds this space can enjoy your insights.
Mallory Hazel
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1.12 | I'm Only Me When I'm With You

to Read (
Words)
And I know everything about you, I don't wanna live without you...
Often I relate to parts of a song, a line that really cuts me to my core, a phrase that captures a part of me. This song hits different though. For the first time I feel like the whole song reflects me. I don’t know what it means to be “paintin’ pictures in the sky" with someone, but also… I do. An abstract concept but I get the vision of what it would be to me and it sounds perfect. Sitting with someone and not having to say anything but still being comfortable together is absolutely the love I dream about. Knowing each other and still choosing each other is all I ever wanted. 

Being that open with somebody else take real vulnerability, and I’ve always wanted to find myself with someone who could hold that vulnerable part of me. I also always wanted to be able to hold the vulnerable parts of someone else. 

When I listened to this song I wrote my husbands name at the top. So many of Taylor’s songs don’t really make me think of my husband, because the relationship ends or is really confusing. Even some of the love songs that end well just don’t feel like they represent our story. Listening to this song was the first time I could see us in a song. I’m interested to see as I continue on through her discography where I see the love story that unfolded for me comes up. Until then I’m thankful that the love I have allows me to be 100% me.
...and you know everything about me, you say that you can't live without me.
I love Taylor Swift’s music and have a deep curiosity about who it is so meaningful to so many people. If you have any thoughts about this song in particular please share it in the comments below so that me and the Swiftie community that finds this space can enjoy your insights.
Mallory Hazel
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1.11 | Our Song

to Read (
Words)
He's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart.
This song is just pure joy for me. I heard it in high school and I feel like it captures a lot of the fun of being a teenager. The excitement of having a crush and flirting. Feeling a new sense of freedom but without having too much in the way of responsibility. It reminds me of all the Friday nights hanging out with friends. Doing whatever, being kind of dumb, but having so much fun. It’s just such good vibes all around. 

In a lot of ways I wish I could take my current maturity back to high school to relive some of the more dramatic moments with a more developed brain, but I know that maturity would also make me too logical, less willing to take risks, and I would have missed out on the moments that made me laugh the most. The memories that have stuck around and become the most important to me are the ones when I was just living in the moment, not taking anything to seriously, and just having fun. 

While I’m technically an adult (I guess), I still feel all the emotions of this song when I’m driving the car by myself singing along. I love when it comes on while I’m going to pick up groceries and I feel no different than I did singing along as I was driving to high school. I love that music can transport us back to a feeling. I might not be able to time travel, but singing along to music like Our Song really does feel like for a moment I can transcend time, like the past and the present have merged into one moment for the duration of this simple song. 
Our song is the way you laugh, the first date "man I didn't kiss her and I should have.
I love Taylor Swift’s music and have a deep curiosity about who it is so meaningful to so many people. If you have any thoughts about this song in particular please share it in the comments below so that me and the Swiftie community that finds this space can enjoy your insights.
Mallory Hazel
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1.10 | Mary's Song (Oh My My My)

to Read (
Words)
Take me back when our world was one block wide I dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried, just two kids you and I.
A quintessential love story captured in a song. Growing up neighbors, two kids find love and grow old together. There is such a sweetness to this song that captures these two people in love and the phases of life they share. Childhood innocence when your whole world is just one block wide. Seeing something more than just friendship in someone, the realization that you want to build a life with them. And the accomplishment of that goal when you are 87 and 89, still in love and living in the life you have built. It’s got all the pieces of this idyllic life story.

It makes me feel so happy and kind of sad at the same time. It’s just a bird eye view of a relationship, a love that lasts told in 3 minutes and 33 seconds. It’s something people hope for and pray for, but we live in the zoomed in reality of a daily life with intimate challenges to face, and if we compare our story too closely to this story we might feel like we fell short in some way. 

I was raised in these stories, bird-eye views of ancestors that were happily married 58 years, with 7 beautiful children all successful in their own marriages and families. Showing the perfect family photos felt important, and they also felt real to me. I truly thought I would grow up and find this perfect marriage and have this perfect family and it would just happen because it is what has always happened. And I grew up and found my husband who is pretty perfect, but we struggled for years with infertility trying to get these perfect children to us. And while I did have these pretty perfect children I found myself with chronic illness as they toddled around. How was I suppose to take care of a baby who needed me for everything when I was in so much pain on a daily basis. But I showed up in the world showing a perfect family, because that’s what we were suppose to do. In my adulthood I have learned that this perfect facade is simply a facade, and while I felt like I should have known this much sooner, how and when should I have come to this conclusion on my own? 

Turns out everyone had miscarriages, or postpartum depression, or infertility, or loss, or illness. All of these perfect worlds are built on real lives with a vast array of experiences, and sometimes I wish we would be more open to sharing all of life, not just the perfect versions.

That being said I love this song. Sometimes in life you just need to be allowed to go to a dreamland of simple love, a lifetime love. A cute beautiful story that shows us that two kids can make a beautiful world.
Take me home where we met so many years before, we'll rock our babies on that very front porch.
I love Taylor Swift’s music and have a deep curiosity about who it is so meaningful to so many people. If you have any thoughts about this song in particular please share it in the comments below so that me and the Swiftie community that finds this space can enjoy your insights.
Mallory Hazel
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1.9 | Should've Said No

to Read (
Words)
But do you honestly expect me to believe we could ever be the same?
I’m quite far removed from the dating and relationships game, and to be frank when I was in the dating game it was under the influence of strict religious beliefs. I don’t feel like I ever really got to experience dating in a normal way, for better or for worse. Now as an adult with kids who will be entering a completely new world of dating with far less rules than I was given, I often wonder what is my role, what is the advice I need to impart, and how do I teach them what is normal and natural when my experience was not. Enter my media training where I listen to music or watch modern television shows as a form of research in addition to the entertainment I seek. I’m observing with an intent to learn how to be in this world when you have true agency to make choices. Sure my strict childhood guardrails kept me from experiencing anything really bad, but they also kept me from experiencing much at all. 

Revisiting Taylor’s Swifts music from her teens years has been fun, but also educational to me. This song in particular makes me feel really proud of her strength and the general message is one that I feel is important to impart. In this song a very dumb guy cheats on his girlfriend, comes crawling back to her with all the right words, and she responds with a resolute “it’s over.” In the beginning when she finds out about this guy cheating she responds by stating that after learning this information even just looking at him feels wrong. I was so impressed by this verbal admission of her feelings. I struggle with wanting to make everyone feel comfortable, and often don’t speak the truth of how I feel so I can keep the peace. I see a real world situation where she holds her discomfort in as he grovels, then it is allowed to be twisted into an idea that maybe what he did wasn’t so bad. But by stating her intuitive feelings out loud, they hold more truth and make it easier for her to stand her ground.

And she does stand her ground, she doesn’t make it about her in any way, simply states that this guy shouldn’t have been doing what he did and that it affected her negatively. The most poignant question she raises is “do you honestly expect me to believe we could ever be the same?” That is the power of being true to yourself and what you deserve. In the end she knows she shouldn’t have been cheated on and she stands on business now that line was crossed. And maybe that’s something I do want to impart to my kids. I’ve watched too many television shows where the women excuse mens bad behavior just for it to repeat itself again and again. If you're looking for love, these people are simply not providing it.
I can't resist before you go tell me this, was it worth it?
I love Taylor Swift’s music and have a deep curiosity about who it is so meaningful to so many people. If you have any thoughts about this song in particular please share it in the comments below so that me and the Swiftie community that finds this space can enjoy your insights.

Mallory Hazel
0 Comments
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