If you have been to a Taylor Swift concert, you know that being there is an experience in itself. Before Taylor's "1989" concert, every fan is given a clear plastic bracelet. During Taylor’s first song, “Welcome to New York,” 50,000 bracelets suddenly burst into light. Throughout the concert, they are controlled by Taylor’s team and are choreographed to flicker to the music at certain times in multiple colors.

But one thing specifically that Taylor does, unlike many other artists, is give breathtaking monologues before her songs. I attempted to scribble down pieces of these in the notes section of my phone to preserve their beauty, but no written words can ever compare to the feeling of simply being there. Two of my favorite speeches were the ones before “Clean” and “All You Had to do Was Stay.” Taylor's “Clean” speech applies to everyone that has lost someone in her life or is going through a difficult time. This is her monologue from “All You Had to do Was Stay”:

“I wish any time you said to someone, 'Do you want to be with me?', I wish they’d just say 'Yes' or 'No.' I wish they never said 'Maybe' or 'I don’t know' to you because you don’t deserve 'Maybe' or 'I don’t know.' I wish you never had to wonder if someone loves you back. I wish you never found yourself in a grey area. I don’t ever want anybody to ever send you mixed signals. I don’t ever want anybody to wait eight hours to text you back and mess with your head. Because waiting eight hours to text somebody back is rude.That’s not flirting. I want things to be simple for you, and I want you to be happy. And I guess that in terms of relationships, I wish that there were just two options, and I think this would simplify things a great deal. I wish that the options you had in a relationship were either you leave or you stay.”

And that is why I love Taylor Swift. For a long time, I found myself in that grey area. That unknown place where you have to wonder if one’s intentions are genuine or if that person truly wants to be with you. There should be no grey area. There should be no questioning or wondering or sinking feeling in your stomach. You shouldn’t be uncertain or have to decipher mixed signals and “maybes” and “I don’t knows.” It is not vain to believe that you are too exceptional to settle for anything less than what you deserve in life, no matter what it is or what the circumstances are. Because it is true. This is how you should approach life as you step out of the grey area. Maybe for some of us, the grey area feels like the safe route because we have known someone for a long time or just find ourselves bored or lonely. But we know that this person has caused us pain and stress and has made our lives much more complicated than they should be. This is when you have to realize that it is necessary to leave the grey area alone in order to truly find happiness.

I think many of us fear the possibility of getting hurt so we shut our hearts out completely from love. I learned that the only way to fully free yourself from heartache is to do one thing: Love. Why would you ever push away a new opportunity? Rarely do people deny better job offers or promotions, so why should you shut out something incredible because you simply fear it will end? That’s all fear is when it comes to love. It’s the same despair we feel when come face to face with death—we fear the end. It’s the same bittersweet emotion I felt when I graduated high school and started college. It’s the same nostalgia-laced uncertainty I felt when I turned 18, the end of my childhood. It’s the same sorrow kids feel when the warmth of August turns into the slight breeze of another September, the end of summer. I too fear the end of love. But sometimes it is inevitable. We need heartbreaks. We need divorce. We need the end of love. This end always leads to a new beginning so there is no reason to fear it. And in this never-ending battle of love and loss and finding yourself, someone will stay.