just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss HIM!

I am still speechless. Taylor Swift the woman you are. It was rare, I was there - Nola night 3! Major shoutout to my dad for searching every website that sold tickets and allowing me to have the most amazing weekend (day) in New Orleans. The travel days were as long as the line for beignets at Cafe du Monde, and it was war to get into our hotel room, but it was all worth it. This was truly was one of the best nights of my entire life. Eras Tour > my own wedding. Victoria, my cousin, and I have had some crazy "collabs" as we say, but this may have taken the top of the list. It was utterly magical to be there with Victoria as she experienced her first Taylor Swift concert. To be surrounded by such love and safety in a stadium was a beautiful sight. How lucky are we to bear witness to this woman's greatness. Like all women and young girls around the world, we have grown up with Taylor and her music ranging through almost every genre.

Now, I promise this whole entry will not be on Taylor Swift, so if you do not like her, just give me a chance.

The Taylor Swift Eras Tour has a set during the show called the "acoustic set" where each night she plays two surprise songs, from any era, and she sings them acoustic - one on the guitar and one on the piano. The show I went to was the 10 year anniversary of 1989 and the 1 year anniversary of 1989 Taylor's Version. 1989 is both Victoria and I's favorite album and we were dying to get some 1989 surprise songs. Since the Eras Tour has gone on for over a year, she has since added "mashups" into the acoustic set. Therefore, she picks two songs on the guitar and mashes them together, and does the same thing on the piano. Two epic mashups totaling 4 songs.

Firstly, Taylor sang "Afterglow", a criminally underrated song from the Lover. She then mashed this up with "Dress" from Reputation. Dress is one of my favorite songs on that album and this mashup was jaw-dropping. Although, I am here to discuss the 1989 mashup that came next on the piano. Taylor sang "How You Get the Girl" and then mashed it with "Clean". Yeah, I could not believe my own ears and started immediately crying when "Clean" came on. The crazy part of this mashup came at the end of the song. She changed the lyric from "just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss it" to "just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss HIM." She also repeatedly sang"that's how you get clean". You may be thinking, okay, and? Well, let's dissect this and relate it to our own lives.

"Clean" was believed to be about addiction, but can be applied to anything. She is the queen of hidden meanings after all. "How You Get the Girl" is another song where Taylor, as she likes to say, is womansplaining to men how to start dating a girl, treat them with respect, and generally how to handle a woman. These lyric changes led me to reflect on my own life.

Sometimes we nudge ourselves into this toxic cycle we urge to be clean from. Whether this cycle is filled with crappy friends, bad habits, or draining relationships we are stuck in a messed up system. Oftentimes, you do not know you are drowning when you are in it. It is this twisted bubble we are trapped in. We become numb to these people and actions. The first offense always hits hard, but after the tenth time something happens, you are numb to it. Think about it, if your favorite team started their football season with a loss in week 1, you would be very upset and feel that loss. However, by the time week 10 comes around and it is their tenth loss, this behavior is expected. You almost expect them to lose and no longer get upset at the loss. This is how certain behavior is excused in a toxic cycle. Often, we have countless friends telling us that we are trapped, and the delusion of it all is oddly comfortable.

In many different circumstances it takes effort to get clean and freed from the mess. Once it is over, everything goes back to normal. As I have learned, you were fine before, and you will be even better afterwards. An important piece of this cycle is that as you release yourself of this behavior, you can sometimes resort back to the nostalgia of it all. I find myself missing people I do not recognize. This happens because we block out the bad parts of some cycles and replace it with this sick nostalgic feeling. It is completely normal to recognize this as what it is. Just a feeling. We are stronger than it. Sometimes we need to resort back to our understanding of how to find ourselves or find someone that knows how to treat us. Breaking free from a cycle that harms us is how we get clean. The answer is within ourselves. Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss him!