My Therapist Would Love The Washington Capitals, and 14 Other Things I've Learned from Taylor Swift and Hockey at 31

Happy birthday to me, if you don't like Taylor Swift and/or Vancouver, skip this one.

Hello from Stanley Park Brewing, where I’m watching the Vancouver sun set behind the pines, squeezing every last possible second out of a trip to my favorite city. It’s never long enough for me out here in Western Canada, but this one went by extra fast.

For once, I wasn’t here for hockey, and I want to stop the busy hockey fans here: If you don’t want to hear about the Eras Tour, I love U, I’m sorry, let’s skip this one.

Anyways, it was rare and I was there for the final show of Taylor Swift’s two-year long Eras Tour.

Before you ask me, no, she didn’t do anything “special.” There was nothing for the social media vipers who study her like the stock market. There wasn’t anything some TikTok panhandler could make a few bucks off.

I’m not going to act like I wasn’t clowning for an album release or a special guest, but the message she sent by doing none of that was a slow burn: This was the most ambitious tour of all time on its own. It was always enough just as it was. You are enough and I am enough, as well.

Swift’s relationship with her fans has always been uniquely personal and intimate (for a billionaire lol), so it was supposed to be a gift that it was just us again. That’s what the acoustic portion was about, and I think that’s why her “Debut” album didn’t get a setlist during the Eras Tour. Her debut, which is actually titled “Taylor Swift,” was just her on her guitar. The acoustic set was her connecting with us again in that way.

I was expecting to get emotional reflecting on first loves, past heartbreaks, and general romantic dealings as Swift took us through every era of her 18 years making music. Instead, I thought about myself and the women who navigated all of that with me, some of them sitting there right next to me still.

I found myself more upset about women I’ve wrongly villainized over the years so we could both get one more crack at some guy neither of us even remember anymore. During “Fearless,” I found myself thinking it was beautiful – not naive – that I ever felt any of these things, and that my teenage self deserves to be pardoned by Joe Biden.

A very young girl came up to me right before the show, eager to trade friendship bracelets. My heart sank when I realized hers said “Spelling is fun!” (from Me!), and all I had to offer her was “Fuck The Patriarchy” (from ATW10). I panicked and said I ran out, and the little girl said, “It’s OK, I just want you to have it.”

Luckily, the best friend I’ve had since I was her age was sitting next to me with an assortment of Swift’s song titles bracelet form to choose from. She chose “Karma.”

I just hope that little girl and her best friend have something better to offer the next generation than I did. Something about her made me believe that they will.

Anyways, I turned 31 last week, and I’m thinking about things Taylor Swift and the game of hockey have taught me along the way. Here are as many as I can think of, rapid fire, before I board this dreaded red eye back to Boston.