You’re probably familiar with Taylor Swift’s fizzy pop hits like “Shake It Off” and “I Knew You Were Trouble”. If you’re not a Swiftie, you might not realize that Taylor also has plenty of beautifully written songs with much more depth than some of her more well-known, catchy tunes.
My personal favorite song on Taylor’s most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, is “I Hate it Here”. It’s hard to imagine someone as wealthy, famous, and successful as Taylor feeling unhappy…but in the song, she sings about being so unhappy that she “goes to secret gardens in her mind” to escape.
Most of us think that if we just had more money, more success, or [insert your thing here]…we’d finally be happy. Taylor has all of that and more, so she is well aware that those things don’t bring happiness.
Instead, she sings about longing to live in a different time or place.
“My friends used to play a game where
We would pick a decade we wished we could live in instead of this
I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid
Everyone would look down ‘cause it wasn’t fun now
Seems like it was never even fun back then
Nostalgia is a mind’s trick
If I’d been there, I’d hate it
It was freezing in the palace”
After quickly realizing that living in a different time wouldn’t solve her unhappiness (and would only create new problems), she muses that perhaps a new planet is the solution.
“I hate it here so I will go to lunar valleys in my mind
When they found a better planet
Only the gentle survived…
No mid-sized city hopes and small town fears
I’m there most of the year ‘cause I hate it here
I hate it here”
This song reminds me so much of the book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain. In that book, Cain writes, “The bittersweet is about the desire for communion…the wish to go home.”
As a Christian, I believe that we live in a broken and fallen world. No matter what we believe, we all seem to have this innate sense that something isn’t quite right. We tell ourselves that if only we had [xyz] thing, everything would be better…until we get that thing and realize it didn’t fill the void we were trying so hard to fill.
We might feel better for a little bit, but there is nothing in this world that will ultimately satisfy us. We have a desire for something better… a life that doesn’t include suffering, disease, sorrow, and death.
In her book, It’s Not Supposed to be This Way, Lysa Terkeurst writes about how we are living life “between two gardens” – banished from the perfection of the garden of Eden and longing to live in the restored Eden.
Terkeurst writes, “In this restored garden of Eden, the curse will be lifted and perfection will greet us like a long-lost friend. There will be no gap between our expectations and experiences. They will be one and the same. We won’t be hurt. We won’t live hurt. We won’t be disappointed, and we won’t live disappointed. Not in people. Not in ourselves. Not in God. Our feelings and faith will nod in agreement. We will return to a purity of emotion where we can experience the best of our hearts working in tandem with the absolutes of truth.”
“The pain you’ve been feeling can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.” – Romans 8:18
Thank God for that.
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