My name is Kendra, I’m 25 years old, and I wanted to say THANK YOU. 💕
When you wrote that music can transport you back to a long forgotten memory, and put a picture frame around feelings you once had, i FELT THAT, girl. As an artist you know that your music is literally the soundtrack to your fan’s lives, and my life has been no exception. I wanted to write a quick (or not so quick tbh) post to thank you for being there for me through your music for the past 13 years. Here are just a few times you have impacted my life:
Middle school… oof. A Place in this World is truly THAT song that EVERYONE can relate to at this stage of their life.
15 was released 2 months after I turned 15. Debut, Fearless and Speak now were the albums that colored the rest of my high school career, with my first boyfriend, first heartbreak, and first realization that I didn’t need him anyway (I’ve realized some bigger dreams of mine ☺️). One of my best friends, @everytime-you-smile-i-smile (Kelsey) and I quoted “Stay Beautiful” to each other all the time.
Do I even need to mention how EPIC the Love Story music video was? Gave me so many #RelationshipGoals
RED came out my freshman year of college, where Kelsey and I met two more of our best friends, @itwas-enchanting-tomeetyou (Megan, who you follow!!) and @youll-never-find-another-like-me (Bre, who you’ve liked selfies of recently!!!). RED fueled so many of my college memories, including cry nights (literally exactly what it sounds like… we put on sad music and cried… thank you All Too Well), dance parties, and OCCASIONAL study sessions 😉
1989 rolled around and I was FINALLY able to attend one of your concerts. We spent HOURS making our Jr Jewels crop tops and tutus with fairy lights. I remember the night we finally finished and tried on our outfits, Megan (who had recently gotten engaged) asked us all to be bridesmaids. 💕 We danced, sang, and screamed the night away with you in Fargo. I had just graduated from college and had a brand new job that was SUPER stressful so I can’t tell you how much it meant to have a stress free experience of a lifetime with you and my friends.
After college, some more major life changes happened. Megan got married in 2016, and then one after another we all got engaged and married (all in the same year!!). There was a shake it off dance party at each and every one of our weddings. (Bonus video included of the INSANE dance party we had to TIWWCHNT at my Bachelorette party, in which Megan’s glasses eventually fall off her face due to her intense head-banging).
Now here comes the part that I’m nervous to write about, because I haven’t posted anything about it on Tumblr before.
When reputation came out, I was so excited to hear that you were obviously in such a good place, in a wonderful relationship, and literally doing “better than you ever were”. I so, so badly wanted to relate to that, but I couldn’t.
On April 5th, 2018, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I’m not going to go into how absolutely, devastating, cripplingly horrible that felt, because I know that you know. It’s truly the one thing that I really wish you and I didn’t have in common, because I wish no one ever had to feel that way. It was the most emotional, hopeless, trying time of my life. It was truly the year that almost everything in my life changed. I watched my mom go through chemo and radiation, and it seemed like the bad news kept coming and coming. We found out that the cancer was spreading, and the medication and treatment wasn’t working. This was all happening while I was switching jobs in August, planning my wedding/getting married in October, and moving to a different city in November. At my rep tour date, you sang Tied Together with a Smile as the surprise song, and it meant so much to me.
I wish that I had a happy ending to this story, but cancer is evil and ended up taking my mom from me and my family on November 27th, 2018.
The last 6 months have been so difficult, and I’m just trying to take it one day at a time. I just wanted to say thank you, because listening to rep and getting excited for Lover has been such a wonderful distraction in a time when I really need some happy in my life.
Anyway… I have no idea how to end this because how do you end a post like this? I just wanted to say thank you times a million for providing the soundtrack to my life, inspiration and goals for my love story, distraction when I need it, and songs to cry to when I need to let out my sadness, anger, and general ~feels~. I have been thinking of you and your mom so often and I am hoping beyond belief that she is doing well and that you have been taking care of yourself, because I know that’s hard to do sometimes, but it’s definitely necessary.
Anyway, thank you, I love you, and I will see you on the Lover tour 💕
P.S. Bonus fact: you inspired my husband to surprise me by adopting our third cat, Mojito (in addition to our first two, Potato and Kiwi), for my birthday this year shortly after you announced you got Benji so THANK YOU!!!! YOU HAVE DONE SO MUCH GOOD IN THIS WORLD!!!!!
