Hey everyone, it’s Aaron here. Those who know me well know that I am a HUGE Taylor Swift fan, or “Swift” as her fan base is often referred to. Well on October 21st she released her 10th album “Midnights” with ANOTHER, deluxe edition that she released HOURS later called the 3am Edition with 7 (a total of 20 songs!!!)’

Needless to say, I have felt like a kid on Christmas. Of course I bought a copy of her vinyl and within her lyric booklet, she describes the inspiration for the album in such an incredibly gorgeous way. I will share it here and can take credit for NONE of this – all of this is Tay Tay and her brilliant mind. And it made me think “What keeps you up at night?” We all have different answers to that question, depending on the night or season in our life, which Taylor so eloquently points out in her note to her listeners:

“What keeps you up at night? It’s a momentary glimmer of distraction. The tiniest notion of reminiscent thought that wanders off into wondering, the spark that lights a tinderbox of fixation. And now it is irreversible. The flame has caught. You’re wide awake.

Maybe it’s that one urgent question you meant to ask someone years ago but didn’t. Someone that slipped through the cracks in your history, and they’re too far gone now anyway. All the ghost ships that have sailed and sailed away, but at this hour, they’ve all anchored in your harbor. They sit with flags waving, bright and beautiful. And it’s almost like it’s real.

Sometimes sleep is as evasive as happiness. Isn’t it mystifying how quickly we vacillate between self love and loathing at this hour? One moment, your life looks like a night sky of gleaming stars. The next, the fog has descended. Suddenly, you’re in the town you left behind all those years ago. The trees of your youth with phantom memory echoes of your belly laughter, and the rope indentations of your old tire swing still on the branch. All the phone numbers you still know by heart but never call anymore. The boy’s devastated face as he peeled out of your driveway. The family man he is now.

What must they all think of you?

Why can’t you sleep? Maybe you lie awake in the aftershock of falling headlong into a connection that feels like some surreal cataclysmic event. Like spontaneous combustion, or seeing snow falling on a tropical beach. A lavender haze crush that feels like the crash of a wave.

Or was tonight the night you realized how solitary, how alone you really are, no matter how high you climb. The elevation just makes it colder.

Some midnights, you’re out and buzzing with the electric current – an adventurer in pursuit of rapturous thrill. Music blaring from speakers and the reckless intimacy of dancing with strangers. Something in the shadowy room to make you feel shiny again. On these nights, you know that there are facets of you that only glow in the dark.

Why are you still up at this hour? Because you’re cosplaying vengeance fantasies, where the bad bad man is hauled away in handcuffs and you get to watch it happen. You laugh into the mirror with a red wine snarl. You look positively deranged.

Maybe you were trying to mastermind matters of the heart again. You’ve gotten lost in the labyrinth of your head, where the fear wraps its claws around the fragile throat of true love. Will you be able to save it in time? Save it from who? Well, it’s obvious. From you.

We lie awake in love and in fear and in turmoil and in tears. We stare at walls and drink until they speak back. We twist in our self-made cages and pray that we aren’t – right this minute – about to make some fateful life-altering mistake. This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through the terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.

See you there. Midnight sharp.

• Taylor Swift”

Okay, if you haven’t listened to Taylor Swift in a long time, it is clearly time to re-visit her latest project. I would love to hear from you all. 

What keeps you up at night?

With love,
-Aaron