Dear Taylor Swift,

Taylor, as a loyal fan, I seem to always be watching along during significant moments of your life. Coincidentally, you have been there for so many significant times in my life. You always seem to release a new album at those times, too – Fearless during seventh grade when songs like “You Belong with Me” and “The Way I Loved You” perfectly described those boys, crushes, and relationships that were so important at the time. Speak Now, which you released during my freshman year of high school. As your music was maturing, I was, too. Red was a turning point for both of us, Taylor. Released during my junior year of high school, a time when the pressure to academically and socially succeed was high and the post-high-school future was dangling right in front of me, your songs gave me strength. “All Too Well” made me yearn for my “old self,” “State of Grace” taught me that love is a “ruthless game” unless you learn to play it well, while “Starlight” reminded me to dream impossible dreams, which was the message my heart needed at that time. Flash forward to freshman year of college – a new chapter of life complete with a new Taylor Swift album within the first few months of school. Taylor, the sound, maturity, and material of 1989 mirrored this new point in my life, and this album helped me through what I now realize was the most difficult period and transition of my life. And that is exactly why 1989 deserves every award it has ever won, especially the 2016 Grammy for Album of the Year. Since its October 27, 2014 release (or October 26, 2014 for those, like me, who preordered it on iTunes), not a day has gone by that I haven’t listened to the album. It is certainly a record that will never go out of style.

I’ve watched you perform live many times – whether it was the first time I saw you as a headliner on your Red tour, this past summer on the 1989 World Tour, or as a performer at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Although your shows never fail to entertain and bring about a sense of nostalgia (of course I cried when you sang Fifteen in Chicago this past summer), my favorite moments of your shows are when you speak to your audience and bestow some advice on us all. Your words have taught me to never give up on my dreams, to believe in love, and most importantly, to love myself. Your words at the closing of the 2016 Grammy Awards furthered your inspirational advice that means so much not only to me, but also to all of us who love and respect you.

“Someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you’ll know that it was you and the people who love you that put you there and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.”

Taylor, these words from your acceptance speech at the Grammys are nothing short of inspirational. Although many of entertainment news outlets say you were speaking directly to Kanye West as a classy response to his new song and grammatically incorrect tweets, I felt as though you were speaking directly to me. I am an ambitious student who is driven by my dreams. Someday when I achieve those dreams, I will remember your words from February 15, 2016. I’ll be confident that I was the reason I got where I wanted to go. I’ll have the people who I love more than anything in the world at my side. So I’ll keep dreaming impossible things. And when those dreams become a reality, it certainly will be the greatest feeling in the world.

Love,

Morgan