The Biggest Breakup (Taylor’s Version)

The Biggest Breakup (Taylor’s Version)

by Valerie

Way back in March, I wrote a blog post about my breakup playlists, specifically related to my departure from the Mormon church. But then April 19th happened. And that playlist took a backseat to the lovingly nicknamed Female Rage, The Musical^TM.

I wrote a brief Facebook post about it that ended up getting me into some hot water with people I love, and subsequently kicking off the most atrocious anxiety spell that now has me on daily psych meds for the first time in my 47 years of being a human. So that’s fun.

I read that post again today, and damn, it’s good. I’m proud of what I wrote. And I don’t have to hide or silence my own voice and my own experiences. So it’s getting a permanent place here on The Uncharted Territory.

April 21, 2024

The Tortured Poets Department. I’ve devoured it. I think I’ve listened to it about 20 times in the last couple of days. And I’ve read some reviews and they’re … meh. Try and come for my job.

But that’s fine. This album might not be for everyone. But it gave me a pretty perfect outlet for what the last three years have been like for me. This is an album for a person who has had their entire world completely shattered and has had to rebuild while trying to be what she was expected to be. It’s hell on earth to be heavenly.

Over the course of the last three years, my faith and trust in the religion of the first 45 years of my life was decimated. For a number of reasons that are too numerous to share here, I’ve stepped back… for good. And you say I abandoned ship / but I was going down with it / my white-knuckled dying grip…

If there is a hell, that kind of “breakup” is it. My entire life came flooding into this shitstorm of betrayal, abandonment, identity crisis, and profound loss. When your impressionist paintings of Heaven turned out to be fakes / Well you took me to hell too.

I’m finally starting to breathe and heal and move forward, enough that I can actually share here, publicly, where people I love who are still “in” will read it. What if I roll the stone away / They’re going to crucify me anyway.

This album is the perfect playlist for the loml. The loss of my life. It’s angry. It’s desperate. It’s devastating. It’s fighting and biting and raw and a LOT. But I howl at the moon / And I look unstable.

That completely unhinged emotion is exactly what I needed at this precise moment. Putting this messy TTPD bow on this chapter of my life has been glorious. And I can’t forget the way you made me heal.

so from the botTom of my heArt, thank You, aLisOn, foR this gift. The tears fell in synchronicity with the score. 🫶🏼