Condition of the Month: Taylor Swift

   I’m only going to use a very small portion of a Taylor Swift song to describe my life, but it’s accurate. You see, there is a lot of chaos at my work right now that is all due to two different people. So all I can think is ” I knew you were trouble when you walked in”.

To be honest I had a hard time finding a T-Swift song to match my life right now, probably because my life is pretty different from Taylor’s! In college I felt like almost all her songs spoke to me in some way, but her more recent stuff hasn’t hit the same chords with me. Most of my favorite Taylor songs are from those college years, but I couldn’t truly choose most of them because they remind me more of how my life used to be than what it is right now.

In the end I picked Taylor Swift’s “Ours.” It’s typical of the kind of song of hers I like, cute and happy (not like her edgier new stuff). The lyrics don’t actually reflect my life that well because I don’t actually think I’m going through any kind of rough patch, but one scene in the music video fit me so perfectly that I actually laughed out loud. Taylor’s at work in her boring office , and when she goes to the copy machine, it’s out of paper. She comes back and it’s still not working. She comes back with a new toner cartridge and the copier isn’t even there! This is so typical of how “technology” works at my school. The internet is working, then suddenly it isn’t, then suddenly it is but half the websites are blocked, etc. We have constant issues with our printers and copiers, and I end up sending passive aggressive emails to our tech guy 3-4 times per week when I go to print something and find that there’s no paper, again. These are minor annoyances, but they’re the kind of thing that grates after a while. We’ve even had a couple of teachers up and quit already this year because they couldn’t handle all the things that just don’t work right.

I guess what I’m saying is, the worst things in my life right now are really quite minor, stuff like being frustrated about a broken printer. The rest of it is like the upbeat, catchy tune of this song: fun and happy.

Hmm. Tough question. Not only because I feel slightly removed from Taylor Swift and her music lately, but also because I have no idea how I feel about my life right now. I went to a doctor’s appointment last week and they asked me to talk a little about my life – you know, small talk to make me feel comfortable – and I had a really hard time answering. I told them I work a lot, which is definitely true, but I felt really weird that I didn’t have a solid answer for who I was. I know I like things, and do things, and work towards things, but lately (and maybe always) I feel pretty unsure of whether I’m taking steps to become who I want to be. Most days I’m fine, there are things to do, distractions to take over, but other times I let the fear in and worry that I’m missing out on something.

So after a few lyric searches and YouTube videos, I’ve settled on Change as the song that best represents my life right now. It’s a positive anthem about how life is hard sometimes but also a reminder that as long as we don’t give up, things will get better. I don’t necessarily feel like anyone is pushing me down, or even that my life is particularly difficult right now, but I like the idea that the more we do fall and struggle, the stronger we become. Sure, I’m a bit lost right now, but as long as I keep moving forward and winning little battles within myself I’m still good.

Because these things will change.

If I was going to describe an aspect of my life right now with a song, I would pick Out of the Woods.  This is not one of my favorite TS songs— a little too repetitive for my tastes.  However, the central lyric that she hits over and over again does resonate with me.  Are we out of the woods yet?  Are we in the clear yet? In the clear yet, good.  The feeling of really wanting to know you’ve made it but somehow not quite being there yet describes how I feel about my PhD.  I have been working and working for years now towards the goal of having a PhD and being able to get a job of some sort in academia.  Between teaching, publishing a paper, and working my butt off on my dissertation, I have doing my best to come up with a stellar resume.   But even somehow even with all my work, I still don’t really know: am I out of the woods yet?  Am I in the clear yet?  Will my efforts really be good enough to secure me a future in academia?

The job market in academia is insanely competitive.  For every job, there are scores (or more) of qualified individuals applying.  Somehow I don’t think I really feel like I am out of the woods until I get a job- and possibly not even then.   But as Taylor the Wise says, when the sun came up, ‘the monsters turned out to be just trees’.  I know that there isn’t anything real to be afraid of.  Something will work out of me, even if it isn’t what I would have expected.  I should just close my eyes and enjoy the ride. But still, sometimes the little voice in my head still asks ‘are we out of the woods yet?  Are we in the clear yet?’