I love it when I find inspiration in a song and it inspires me to write something that I can actually relate to. Sometimes you hear something and you relate so deeply that you can tie your own experiences to it, almost as if you had written it yourself. Listening to Taylor Swifts album "Lover" for the first time, I immediately felt a connection with the first song on the album titled "I Forgot That You Existed". This song is about someone who had been taking up space in your mind and caused you heartache, whether it be a friend, an ex, or just someone who used to be a part of your life, who is know off your mind and you realize that you've moved on from all of it and you're okay.
"I forgot that you existed. And I thought that it would kill me but it didn't"
This line in the chorus is what really hits me deep. I caught myself recently thinking about someone I had dated in the last year for a brief period. I remember it being great in the beginning, and then it started turning sour and it caused me a lot of heart-ache, even when I was still with him. He stressed me out more than anything else I just got on my last nerve honestly. Breaking things off with him was really hard initially and there was a period afterwards where I struggled a bit with my decision. I moved on with my life and was totally fine... Then one day, while talking with a friend about people we had dated, I realized that I had totally forgotten about this guy. I went "Oh RIGHT, I forgot about him". It's awful, I know... But what I'm getting at is that something can hurt in the moment, but eventually, more often than not, these things end up exiting our minds and we hardly remember them after a certain amount of time has passed.
"It isn't love, it isn't hate, it's just indifference"
I think we can all look back on relationships and even friendships that went wrong and think "man I really hate him/her". Hate is a strong word, but you know what I mean. There's also people that you look back on and remember that you loved them and they do still hold a special place in your heart, even if they aren't a part of your life anymore. But then there's those people who kind of just became insignificant and you just don't really have an opinion about anymore. Maybe they didn't totally do you wrong, but you also don't miss having them in your life and it's not like there's a void. Something about that is just really liberating. When someone doesn't have any sort of power in your life anymore, it's like a weight is lifted off your shoulders.
"How many days did I spend thinking ‘Bout how you did me wrong, wrong, wrong? Lived in the shade you were throwing ‘Til all of my sunshine was gone, gone, gone"
I've held onto this bitterness towards a couple individuals who gave me a really hard time growing up. Of course, one of them moved to the same city as me for university and I've crossed him a number of times. Looking back, I kick myself in the foot a little bit for letting him take my sunshine away by thinking about him so much. Now, I basically never think about that time and the impact I let it have on me for years. That time and this person are so insignificant now, that I sometimes forget that they're out there. And again, it's such a damn good feeling.
When I look at life as a whole, some of these little things and the people who left a small dent in your life really don't matter. Something can be totally devastating in one moment, but if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, that one moment in the timeline of your life doesn't have to have a lasting impact. Of course, some things do leave a big impression on your life. But the petty people and the shitty boyfriends really won't matter in a year or ten years from now... If you don't let them. It's easy to hold onto things for a long time and let people rule your life. But those people don't deserve the space that they take up in your mind. That space should be reserved for the friends who are still by your side, the family who has always been good to you, and the man who is showing you every day that boys weren't all the same after all. I sometimes catch myself thinking "man, I forgot about the guy who told me not to come over because I had feelings for him", or "wow that's right, I did date a guy who told me I couldn't hold an intellectual conversation and therefore couldn't date him", or "RIGHT, there was a kid that I kicked in the shins in the fourth grade because he was picking on my glasses". I look back now, remembering these people that I forgot, and I realize that those people hold nothing over me now. I feel totally indifferent. I forgot that they even existed.
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