A Long Time Coming

Everyone lives for the highs – the promotions, the graduations, the weddings, the births, the greatest concert you’ve ever witnessed – but the lows are where your unfiltered character shows.

Everyone also tells you to enjoy your twenties.

“You’re only young once!”

“You’re young, you’re resilient!”

“You’ve got plenty of time.”

Until suddenly you don’t. You’ve got plenty of time until everyone around you is putting away childish things and you’re left spinning on a carousel that you know you need to get off – but it doesn’t stop, and you can’t jump because you can’t tell where you’ll land.

Then suddenly you’re twenty-six years old with no love life (at least none that you’d care to bring attention to), the same barely-liveable-wage job and address you’ve had since you were seventeen (aka your parents’ house).

And people with less years of experience manage to get off the carousel easier than you did – landing perfectly right where they should. They wave to you encouragingly, with their own loves of their lives, and their blossoming adult careers, and their new homes, and stand oh so proudly with the old people who put you on it in the first place, but still your stop never comes.

You can’t help but despair.

I became aware of my carousel two Julys ago.

I had proper best friend for the first time in my life, and we were making plans: We were going to get tickets for the Eras Tour. Wherever we could get them we would make a whole girls’ vacation out of it, come hell or high water.

I had nothing else to look forward to; this was it; this was the one glimmer of a happiness keeping my spirits up.

As history can tell you, perhaps better than I can, securing those tickets was no small feat. We committed to what Swifties would lovingly call “The Great War” and lost magnificently in the battle of the U.S leg of the tour.

But this was a mere setback. When the European front opened up, and no Canadian dates yet announced, we prepared to go across the pond with a much stronger battle strategy.

Our first choices, Dublin, London, and Liverpool were instantly out of the question. Ticketmaster distributed those tickets, so no dice, but we did manage to secure presale codes for Germany (both locations), Zurich and Milan (the latter only achievable because my friend’s father had joined our cause).

Cris and I stayed up until two in the morning for the presale in Germany. In sync we entered our codes and the cue. Cris got the head of the que first, but nerves set in, the timer didn’t help, and the checkout screen proved a formidable substitute for Cerberus. Within seconds, the only tickets left to us were VIP packages hilariously beyond our budget.

We had just two chances left. The next day, July 13, 2023, at two in the morning, the Zurich presale would open, and if that failed, Milan would open at four. We were in the fight of our lives and bracing ourselves to lose the war.

The day preceding the last battle did not allow me much energy. I was lifeguarding at an outdoor pool, that was at full capacity with summer bathers who believed themselves above rules. It was a hot enough day, that we were secretly hoping for a drowner, so we’d have an excuse to jump in and cool off. To make matters worse, I had a co-worker who treated me like an idiot, and my lunch was delivered to the wrong location, and I was still charged for it.

I arrived at Cris’s house that night exhausted, hungry, discouraged, and overheated with a takeout bag in hand. At least I had time to destress before the Zurich line opened. All three of us had that code, and as far as I knew, Zurich didn’t have the same tourist appeal as Milan – Zurich would be a shoo in, Milan would be impossible.

I knew sweet diddly squat.

At 1:45 AM July 13, 2023, MST, we were all poised in Cris’s dad’s office. At 1:58 AM Cris was beginning to panic. At 1:59 Am our fingers were hovering over our keyboards. At zero hour we jumped headfirst into the line with fevered determination. When Cris’s dad got to the front of the line within seconds, our spirits soared – he had three tickets selected in our price range, Cris’s credit card was entered, all we had to do was click purchase – then the computer glitched. It was past the three-minute mark, when I got to the front of the que – three minutes too late.

I wish I could say I handled it better. I wish I could say I handled it with any level of grace and or maturity higher than the average six-year-old.

I wish I could say I didn’t break down into a blubbering sobbing dramatic and pathetic mess, wailing about how I had nothing else good to look forward to.

Those who condemn you for your darkest moments of despair are the biggest hypocrites you will ever meet. I am blessed to say I faced no such judgement that day. The Era’s Tour .

My true colours came out in that moment – I had no positivity, no leg to stand on, no security in myself or my accomplishments - I was merely playing pretend at being an adult.

I literally had to be put down for a nap before the Italian window would open at 4 AM MST.

There was no more time for tears. We had only one code. One other computer option. One useable credit card. One last chance to secure satisfy 13 years of waiting. We got through the line just as quickly, on Cris’s laptop this time, and this time with a stroke of fate. In the fevered pitch of the Ticketone battleground, Cris began to lose nerve. I don’t know where I picked up mine – maybe I was tired of feeling sorry for myself.

I took over the operation, selecting tickets for only 75 euros. So close to the finish, we almost hung up on one hitch – the site would not let us purchase more than two tickets. Without Cris’s dad’s sacrifice of his ticket, we would have been dead in the water. Entering the credit card gave us another fright, when the missing of an initial meant re-entering the information altogether until: The “thank you for your purchase” page finally appeared.

Victory was ours.

Fast forward a couple of months to November 2023. I still have no legitimate career to speak of, love life is a joke, and moving out is a pipe dream.

My little brother is sworn into the Canadian Armed Forces. After the ceremony, his commanding officer suggests I might consider joining. So I do, because a concert a year away cannot be the only thing ahead of me. I figure that Image Tech is the best role for my education and skills. I pass the intelligence test. In my search for all my transcripts, I discover I was approved to graduate from my cinema program; I was initally blocked due to a classmate refused to turn in a group project, and miraculously disappeared. She was found and threatened with legal action by the client. The client, argued that my credit be restored to me, allowing my graduation, and a refund of the class that NAIT was prepared to take my money for a second time. I was moving on to better futures.

During some recruiting office ordered medical exams, I faced the cold harsh reality of my weight: I was 253 lbs.

There was no girl-bossing, body positivity bullshit I could spin: I was unhealthy.

I snapped into a new focus. I macro-tracked everything I ate, and diligently followed an exercise routine. By the time of my NAIT graduation, I was unrecognizable.

By the time our plane took off on July 9, 2024, I was 27 years old, 45 lbs lighter and waiting for the final word from the military. And, I was about to realize an almost 14 year old dream.

Through all of my challenges - my broken friendships, professional rejections one by one, academic betrayals, and being merely used, ignored, and blamed for his insecurities in my only lengthy romantic relationship (at the time) - Taylor Swift's music has been there. I have grown up with it. I appreciate the raw and deep emotion of All Too Well better than I possibly could when I was 14 - when it was released.

I never appreciated the screaming fan girl until the moment the show began.

The lyrics of various songs blending together, one lyric specifically: It's been a long time coming...

Because it had. It had been exactly a year since we "survived the great war". I now had a best friend, a lifelong dream being achieved, significantly improved health, body image and self worth, and a brighter outlook on the future, no matter what happened with the military (they would inevitably reject me for my asthma).

The most cathartic moment in the show - the moment that all these truths felt most poignant, was the performance of All Too Well.

Because I had lived what was being sung to me. I had more than once been a crumpled up piece of paper lying discarded. I had learned to pick myself up, to take something worthwhile from every hard lesson in my life. It is one thing to listen to it on blast in my car. It's another to hear it live. It was rare, I was there. I will always remember it all too well.