There are two things I remember from Sophia Singh’s 9th birthday party: making our own personal pizzas, and listening to Taylor Swift’s brand new album Red on the CD player Sophia got for her birthday.

Taylor Swift had me singing about “feeling 22” at the age of 9 and humming about “a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed” even though I was also, in fact, a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed. When Red—an album famously about heartbreak and recognizing when you are falling in love, not just infatuated with someone—came out, my life experience did not expand beyond the teal walls of my childhood bedroom, yet I still memorized the lyrics printed on the inside cover of my CD.

I was leaning against the lockers in the breakroom, my lifeguard hat resting lazily on my head, when I learned Swift would be releasing her version of Red in November 2021—almost a decade after the original version. Overwhelmed with joy, I immediately began to cry. Swift’s Red was an album I found myself going back to frequently, reminiscing on what not only got me to become a fan of Swift’s, but also became a source of exploring empathy through the heartbreaks I experienced in my youth.

Red was Swift’s first album to cross multiple genres, experimenting beyond the confines of the “country” label placed on her. This shift was representative of heartbreak, as the multitude of genres included on the album allowed her to capture her feelings as “a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end.” The end of a relationship—especially a romantic one—is often messy. The first romantic relationship I was in was when I was 15, and it ended in a large mess that never seemed like it would be completely cleaned. Although it felt like no one I knew understood what I was going through, it seemed like Red’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “The Lucky One” did.

When Red (Taylor’s Version) was announced, it was exactly three months away from when I would have to say goodbye to the person I first fell in love with. I spent the entire summer preparing for that moment, but when it finally arrived, the only closure I was met with was the way we left each other in silence. There was no redemption, no possibility of seeing him tomorrow and explaining myself. I understood our time together had ended, and I would be forced to cope with my heartbreak without the support of my people at home.

The day after we left each other, I remember listening to “All Too Well.” It was a song that captured “the intimate moments and conversations that make (and break) a relationship,” Deepa Lakshmin wrote for MTV in 2017. For the first time, I felt as though empathy was represented in my love loss, not just pure sympathy.

The evening Red (Taylor’s Version) was released, the first song I listened to was “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version).” Uncontrollably crying in the stillness of my college dorm, I was able to nurture and revel the feelings of heartbreak and love I had suppressed for several months in the hopes that I would simply forget them once I moved away to school. For an entire 10 minutes, Swift allowed me to relive the notions of my most prominent romantic endeavor. I recognized not only how hurt I was by its end, but also how much I learned from it.

Red (Taylor ’s Version) was released as I was about to genuinely embark on my adulthood. It was no longer the simplistic moment of turning 18, but moving away from the people and places I had known for the past 18 years to somewhere entirely new where my life would essentially “Begin Again.” The more I matured and the more things I experienced, the more Red became prominent in and relatable to my life. The new albumis a reminder of who I once was, and who I am becoming as I venture into my adulthood. Although I’ve upgraded from a twin-sized bed to a twin XL-sized bed, Red (Taylor’s Version) has helped me understand that not everything has changed—perhaps I have just evolved.

Beginning Again with Red (Taylor’s Version)