Last night, I watched “Miss Americana”, the Taylor Swift documentary released on Netflix. There I was, in the cover of darkness – my tear-streaked face illumined by the screen of my iPad. Why was I overtly emotional, you ask, dear reader?

I was around nine or ten years old when “Love Story” was first released. I became a huge Taylor Swift fan after. I downloaded the songs on LimeWire (of course) and I would play those every Friday night, while I was playing Club Penguin and Disney Fairies while chatting with friends on Yahoo Messenger.

I’m turning 22 next week. (Yes, of course, I am fully aware that Taylor Swift’s RED album has a song called 22 and that it’s a jam.)  I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan for that long, and it kind of blows my mind.

The first concert I ever went to was for the Speak Now tour here in Manila back in 2011. All my friends, my siblings also loved Taylor Swift – she was universal to us. Fearless got us through the middle part of elementary school. Speak Now brought us to its end. RED guided us through sophomore year, while 1989 graduated high school with us. During one school carnival, someone put in a song request for “New Romantics”, and I remember dancing and singing with my friends through the halls.

Her songs grew with us – through joy and through pain, through heartbreak and the exquisite possibility of love that’s just around the corner.  I was especially keen on how Taylor would use her words and her stories. That was her biggest strength, she admitted in “Miss Americana”. No other musical artist can tell a story like she can.

That is one of my biggest emotional attachments to Taylor Swift. She is a writer. Like me, she has to find the exact words to fit, or else she’d explode. I also relate to the fact that she’s this perpetually misunderstood do-gooder who just wants to do everything right.

So it was painful for me to see Taylor have to undo her belief system and reconfigure her life. At some point, during college and during the time of the Kanye-Kim issue, I took a break from being a fan and she took a break too. I was disappointed with how she handled it, but I knew deep down that I can never stop supporting her. To do so would be like turning my back on a kindred spirit.

In “Miss Americana”, they also showed her writing the songs for Reputation – my least favorite of her albums. I realized while watching that this album was for her. It was her therapy album, a way to unburden all the dark feelings inside her, which is why most of it sounds raw and resentful. It vibes with the diaries I wrote back when I was an angry teenager in high school. But despite all of it, there were still bright spots – Delicate and Gorgeous were hopeful and brighter. My favorite track, Getaway Car, was an admission of guilt.

When Lover came into the picture, I was able to embrace the album openly because Taylor finally sounded happy. She was overcoming everything she had to deal with, and through that process, helped me overcome the everyday I had to deal with too.

I don’t think I will ever fully regret being her fan, because I know she is a person actively seeking growth and goodness. I guess this letter is a thank-you to Taylor, for being herself, all these years. It’s also a thank-you for her music and lyrics, and all the magic we made. Long live!