Not Suitable for Ex Boyfriends: The Afterglow
A Tswift inspired post, but not Tswift dominated.
It is almost exactly one week before Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, comes out. In typical Taylor fashion, she has used this album to draw her Swifties, old and new, back in with existing content to get us excited about the forthcoming album. She worked with Apple Music to create five playlists based on themes that also appear in the new album. Each playlist starts with a voice note from Taylor explaining how the various songs relate to each other.
As a woman with many feelings, and a once boy-crazy high schooler, Taylor really speaks to my soul. Can you guess which Michnoff girl this is speaking?!* There are so many songs she has written that remind me of moments in past relationships. Mean reminds me of the time my high school boyfriend laughed at the list of colleges I was apply to, implying I couldn’t get into any of them. Dear John reminds me of the first time my college boyfriend and I broke up because I felt so blind-sided. You’re Losing Me reminds me of how I felt at the very end of my most recent relationship, and I can’t tell you how many people sent me this song saying “this is for you”.
The “Am I Allowed to Cry” playlist is about bargaining. Taylor says there can be a stage in (the wrong) relationships where you make deals with yourself or someone you care about to try and make things better. You’re feeling so desperate to hold onto the relationship, but grappling with a gut intuition that things are not going to go the way you hope. A road trip to Philly and NJ this past weekend allowed me to listen to each playlist and really think about them.
Afterglow is on the bargaining playlist - it’s a song I’ve always loved because I have totally been there. Desperately wanting a fight or feeling of distance with your partner to blow over. Anxious for the moment when you two are back on the same page and happy again. But, as she explains, wanting that moment is just you making a deal with yourself and not listening to or accepting the real problem at hand. Worst of all, it prevents you from being true to yourself.
All three of my significant romantic relationships had multiple break ups. I love giving people second (third, fourth and sometimes fifth) chances. Actually, sometimes I would BEG them to put me through the ambiguity of their love again. I literally begged my high school boyfriend to be with me at one point while he had another girlfriend. I clearly bargained frequently with myself and my partners, where they often won the battle and I caved, fitting myself into their small circles of ideals.
I think the idea of an afterglow can have two meanings though. There is 100% the idea that you want a partner who will weather the storms with you. Who, no matter what is said or done in a heated moment, will love you to the ends of the earth. Ideally, you both would use that experience to focus on communication and acceptance, coming out the other side better than before. But, not every storm is meant to be weathered and I think an afterglow can also be the starting realization that a relationship is over. I haven’t had the afterglow that Taylor writes about yet, but I have had my own a-ha moments when it feels right to walk away. At those points, I think I get sick of bargaining and realize that, while my love for each former partner was real, it wasn’t worth charging head-first into those storms for.
I can’t really put pen to paper on how I knew my relationships were ending, or what happened exactly to make me feel that way, other than the fact that I was just tired of the antics. Historical patterns from my relationships finally get the best of me and each time I’d feel a wall come up as I told myself “enough”.
My high school boyfriend was really just not great, in many ways. We had the 16-year-old love story where we were desperate for each other in the beginning. He was a lifeguard and I was a swimming instructor. Our first date was him pulling up to my beach house on his jet ski to take me off for a ride at sunset. I mean…CUTE! It didn’t last that way for long and we proceeded to be on-and-off for three years, with a lot of fighting and lying. The summer before college, I rented a shack in Nantucket with my girlfriends and high-school boyfriend followed with his. He presented himself as pretty clingy and would get jealous when I was going out with the girls, or didn’t respond to his texts fast enough. He was rude to my best friend and I remember sobbing when she confronted me about his behavior, hysterical that I would lose my best friend, not my boyfriend. The final straw was when my friends and I packed up dinner to have at the beach. I told him I’d be busy and left my phone at home on purpose because I didn’t want to deal with him. I don’t even want to tell you the texts I got while I was out. I was no longer committed. I’m not sure what made me see the light, but I had reached the afterglow. I was just alone on the other side.
My college boyfriend and I were on-and-off for too long. This was an interesting relationship because so many people meet their forever partners in college and can make the transition from college to real world together, but we struggled. The real issues started when, after some time out of college myself, I was ready to grow up. Just as my parents divorce was finalized, I asked him to go to therapy with me. It was almost like the second I could close the chapter on the lingering feelings of my parents separation, I could then focus on my own relationship. There was one session where our therapist looked at me and said I looked defeated. I don’t really remember what we talked about, but I remember walking out of the session and saying goodbye to him as he went off to work feeling exhausted from trying so hard. I didn’t want to have to convince someone to be someone they weren’t just for me, but I also wanted more. One morning, I finally got the courage to ask him “me or partying?”. “Both”, he said. Other things fell out following that, but I had reached the afterglow. I was just alone on the other side.
My most recent boyfriend and I were on-and-off for too long, again. Three weeks into dating him I knew I loved him (Mastermind reminds me of this time) and it felt different than past relationships. But time, Covid, and other things can derail the early spark. Our one-year anniversary followed with him breaking up with me because he thought we weren’t on the same page about living together, marriage, etc. timelines. He was right, but I bargained with him and myself and we got back together three weeks later. This issue would persist through the very end of our love story until I got sick of bargaining. We broke up and got back together almost annually following the first time for…four years. The last time, also entwined with other things convincing me he wasn’t my “one”, allowed me to reach the afterglow. I was just alone on the other side.
One may look at my story and think, “damn, Gabby, why didn’t you just listen to the situation the first breakup around?!” If I had, I’d probably have five more boyfriends written in this post lol. I don’t regret trying things with each boyfriend multiple times. I needed those experiences to have my own sense of closure. To feel confident things were over and there was no turning back. Those endings, while sad, were also really powerful moments for me and that sensation propelled me into new chapters. Each time I said goodbye to a boyfriend, new things came into my life. Whether it was amazing new college friends, a great trip, a new boyfriend (probably should’ve made myself wait a bit longer between each, but alas), new learnings about who I am, a new job, Sunny. The list truly goes on. I am a better person for each one of my ex-boyfriends. And an even better person on top of that for walking away from each one of them.
Taylor’s “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” playlist is about the act of finally finding acceptance. Moving forward from loss or heartbreak and making room for more goodness because, as she reminds us, we often gain things when we lose something. I’ve been taking my time to Breathe, but, Now That We Don’t Talk, I really do feel like our Closure was pretty Clean and I’m ready for it all to Begin Again.
PS My friend Court shared this Instagram, which couldn’t be more timely in explaining why I love Taylor’s discography so much.
*Gabby
Taylor Swift Playlists:
Oh the lessons we learn about ourselves through past relationships. 😄
I’m grateful that my hubby is the complete opposite of what I had attracted into my life in the past.
24 years later we are still growing and learning together.
I don’t think I really knew what I wanted before he came along.
What I do know is that we constructed a totally different relationship than I ever had with my past relationships. So, just because we think we might be repeating patterns in relationships, doesn’t mean that that will be our story forever. 💕 (thank goodness!)