Lights Camera Bitch Smile

dispatch from new york city

How does Taylor just…know? The timing of her new album drop was impeccable and I listened to it while boarding my flight from Florida back to New York on Friday morning. I had been listening in bed since 2 am. I will leave it there for now. This is my top pick so far. This is a close second.

I’m inspired to get back to my poetry. I wrote a book of poems called Stripped in 2016 and people seem to love it but I have so much more to say eight years later. So much more life to write about. So much more pain to talk about. I wrote a lot of poems last year that I never shared. Should I put them here? Taylor wrote in her liner notes for TTPD “Because its the worst men I write best…My muses acquired like bruises”. Mmmhmm.

My birthday is tomorrow! I am so thrilled to be forty four. Forty fucking four! What a privilege to look and feel this good lol. But really, why were we sold this narrative that women shrivel up and die in their forties? I have never felt like more of a badass. I have never felt hotter or more secure in myself or more certain of my choices.

Here are some other truths I’ve learned:

Do what makes you happy until it stops making you happy (this is harder than it looks).

Trust your gut. She knows she knows she knows.

Vintage jewelry is always better than new jewelry.

Nothing — absolutely nothing — is a mistake. It’s all an experience and the moment you realize that is the moment you are free.

A phone on silent is a gift to your nervous system.

Wear the outfit.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for the way you feel.

Everyone needs a disco ball in their apartment.

The red flags you ignored in the beginning will be the reason you leave later.

It is your job to write the truth.

To write like nobody’s reading.