Like snow on the beach ❄️

and why I'll never listen to this song again

I’m trying to figure out when the inspiration to write and update strikes.

But as I’m hiding in a café this cold and windy afternoon, stuck with admin work, I played Electric Touch¹ on Spotify and suddenly the energy to write just hit like clockwork.

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This time last year, I fell in love for the first time.

It’s hard to explain, and I’m bad at putting emotions into words, but it’s giving IYKYK (if you know, you know) energy.

I never talked about it, because it was both short-lived and cut short. Now that I’m typing these words out, my heart is beating twice as fast as my anxiety heightens and my thoughts bring me back to that moment, wanting to remember and forget it, all at the same time.

Like most girls, I grew up watching cute romcoms and hoping I’d meet my version of Nomad² from A Cinderella Story.

This scene in A Cinderella Story where Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” plays at the background lives in my head rent free

Listening to Taylor Swift’s Love Story as a teenager and hoping I’d get a cute prom partner (I didn’t) led me to believe I had no chance at love and experiencing it in this lifetime.

I lived in all these TV shows and films showing the different sides of romance, all the grand gestures (admittedly not a fan of them), and all the heartbreaks (well, specifically 500 Days of Summer and Fleabag). Obviously, there’s a reason television shows are not all realistic—all the mundanity and complexities of two people getting together are not always shown or written for the screen.

It’s obviously taken me a breakup that cut deep and having my poor cold heart broken for the first time to realize that.

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Unbeknownst to many, I’ve never been in a relationship until last year.

I always ended up liking boys who never liked me back, or get into weird in-between situationships that never saw the light of day. Or put them up to a pedestal and was confused whether I really liked them or the idea of them (I mean, I’m still confused most times).

So I thought I hit the jackpot when I met this cute boy and got to know him. It was like having a best friend, but better. It was admittedly amazing while it lasted (until it didn’t).

For the longest time, I’ve had a Non-existent Lovelife playlist (now deleted) on Spotify where I put in songs that made me feel what being in love felt like. Inside were songs like Edwin McCain’s I’ll Be, Dashboard Confessional’s Stolen (one of my all-time favorites), and Rico Blanco’s Your Universe. To be honest, I forced myself to forget that playlist and I don’t remember any song in particular anymore. It was for the best.

But I clearly remember that Taylor Swift’s Midnights album came out at around the same time—and I clearly remember how much I played Snow on the Beach on repeat the entire November last year.

Taylor Swift, who collaborated with Lana del Rey on the song, explains³:

“The song is about falling in love with someone at the same time as they’re falling in love with you, in this sort of in this cataclysmic, faded moment where you realize someone feels exactly the same way that you feel, at the same moment. And you’re kind of looking around going, “Wait, is this real? Is this a dream? Is this for real? Is it really happening? Kinda like it would be if you were to see snow falling on a beach.”

I think I lost it when these lyrics captured how I felt in its entirety, at that time:

I (I) can't (can't) speak afraid to jinx it
I (I) don't (don't) even dare to wish it
But your eyes are flying saucers from another planet
Now I'm all for you like Janet
Can this be a real thing? Can it?

(I love the shoutout to Janet Jackson⁴ btw)

I remember thinking, how can someone know exactly how it feels like without me having to explain it? Of course, Taylor Swift knows. As someone who’s listened to her entire discography since she was a teenager, Taylor Swift’s songs have been some sort of a benchmark of my non-existent knowledge with feelings and emotions and the topsy turvy rollercoaster of falling in and out of love.

It’s no surprise that I’ve been a fan of Taylor Swift since her first song Teardrops on my Guitar was aired on YouTube in the early 2000s (I’m pretty sure this was the first video I watched on the platform, too). I’d talk more about Eras Tour, but that’s for another post.

Looking back‚ I definitely learned one important thing: I cannot and will not assign a Taylor Swift song to a relationship or to a boy. 😂 It’s going to age badly and now I can’t listen to Snow on the Beach ever again.

In hindsight, listening to that song over and over again put me into a trance and helped me hold on to that one feeling for dear life (which I later on realized how unhealthy I was being to myself by doing that).

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They say breakups require you to go through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I’m pretty sure mine was in a different order: denial, bargaining, depression, anger, and acceptance. It was also weeks after my 30th birthday so obviously I’ve tied my 30th year to the one where everything came crashing down (literally; I fell off a construction site earlier this year too⁵, fun times).

What I’m trying to say is, that short-lived romance was definitely like snow on the beach. Weird but fucking beautiful indeed. But until I give myself time to love myself more and choose what’s best for me, I’ll be happily single, thank you very much.

PS: Things are obviously better now, otherwise I wouldn’t have the audacity to type this out and know some strangers are lurking on the Internet and reading about why I decided not to listen to a particular song.

1. Electric Touch (feat. Fall Out Boy) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault) I love this song. So much.

2. Nomad was Austin Ames’ screen name in A Cinderella Story. Austin Ames was played by everyone’s favorite heartthrob of the 2000s, Chad Michael Murray.

3. Quoted from this article

4. The line “Now I’m all for you like Janet” is an ode to Janet Jackson’s All For You

5. This is for future Substack posts, lol