Coming-of-age is a Vantage column where staffers share their opinions on a specific beat. From in-depth analyses of TV series to miscellaneous musings in music (and everything in between), this monthly column is an avenue to spread and inspire thought-provoking ideas.

In this column, Vantage Magazine staffer Leila talks about how Taylor Swift’s songs captured the music of her lifetime.

If you asked me about certain phases in my life, I would simply send a link that redirects you to a Taylor Swift album.

With all honesty, I have little to no experience on half of the stories she used to sing about. I didn’t meet a charming boy when I was 15 years old, and no man named John broke my heart at age 19. I was—and still am—just navigating through life, thinking about where my future is headed.

My teenage years were devoted to growth and self-discovery, so romance was naturally off the table—and yet, she was there through it all.

Swift released reputation at a time when I felt that I was being wronged by the universe. Back in 2017, I expected that the album’s release would be the anthem of my villain origin story, but I wasn’t brave enough to stand my ground. How could she feel good knowing she “did something bad?” I dodged confrontations by posting subtweets because it was the only way I could escape these conversations. I wanted nothing more than to be as unapologetic as she was.

Her songs have always been responsive and reactionary. Swift made sure to have the last word. Some might say it’s petty, but I knew how it felt to be labeled as the bad guy—it’s easier to become defensive when you feel wrongfully accused.

In 2019, she made a complete 180. The first time I listened to Lover was on an E-jeep ride to the Blue Eagle Gym as a freshly-minted college student. Through Delicate, she puts into words exactly what being in a new environment felt like: A gate to “sacred new beginnings.” The days of revenge and regret are way over. This became my confession that I have been unfair and I, too, was at fault.

Closing her seventh studio album with Daylight was Swift’s way of saying that the only reputations that should matter are the ones where love is involved. These are thoughts that take a while to understand, and I think it’s an idea difficult to accept. It’s not a challenge to be uncaring and aloof. If anything, it’s a reminder to be more gentle and to become love personified. The track echoes the lightness that I’ve been feeling before the world came to a standstill.

We were four months into quarantine when the songwriter released folklore, followed by evermore five months later. Being engrossed in her music was a form of escapism—a product of lockdown that was also meant to be absorbed in lockdown. What made these albums different from her past work was the very role she adopted, no longer singing as the victim, the villain, or the lover.

Swift was now the storyteller from a distance, drawing inspiration from fantasy, history, and reality. I couldn’t relate to her because of this. But, from folklore to evermore, one theme reverberated from the first track to the last.

It was hard-hitting loneliness.

She sang of lonely teenagers and heiresses, rejected marriage proposals, and family long gone. They would have existed in an alternate universe in fanfiction—people from before and after, isolated from our here and now.

Isolation and longing aren’t strange concepts. We’re having first hand experience, except it isn’t the kind that Swift was singing about. Despite this, I’ve learned to make peace with my emotions, and since then have decided to allow myself to feel.

These songs were quiet consolations from my favorite artist. It hits differently, listening to her music years after its release. I’ll be a day older when I hear the same songs tomorrow, but I know that my perspectives continue to change.It helps to give new meaning to old sentiments, to remember the moments when we were “living for the hope of it all,” as Swift sings in august. This is my ode to nostalgia—one that I will continue to revisit while waiting for the world to find its balance again.