End Of an Era?

During Christmas break, my daughter and I watched the 6-episode documentary about Taylor Swift's Era Tour.

If I'm being honest, it was terribly difficult for me to watch.

I love Taylor. I love her music.

It had nothing to do with her or the tour or the film.

It had everything to do with my 'era' during the chokehold The Eras Tour had on the world.

It didn't take long into the first episode for me to be overcome with anger and bitterness. Taking Elly to the concert was one of my biggest goals. I had my sights set on Atlanta or Nashville at first. Then Chicago. Then Cincinnati. Watching ticket sales go through the roof, I was quickly realizing there was no way I couldn't make it happen. The money just wasn't there. The timing was always wrong. Then after the Europe leg, I was intent on making it to Indianapolis.

When I realized that tickets were even more difficult to land than they were the previous year, I even entertained just driving up and hanging around Lucas Oil Stadium with all the other Swifties.

We didn't do that either.

Watching the documentary footage of fans piling into stadium after stadium was crushing, knowing I had missed an opportunity to provide that joy to my daughter. (Much less myself.)

Before this dives deeper into what must seem like the dumbest, vainest, pettiest pity party on the planet, I'm aware that more people that wanted to go to The Eras Tour didn't get to go than did. Plenty of mothers didn't get to experience it with their daughters. I get it. But the last 2.5 years for me have existed in some sort of financial Bermuda Triangle where nothing - and I mean literally nothing - has shifted my financial standing, much less allowed me to 'save' for anything extraneous or excessive (like a massive concert.) I've tried to change jobs, I've added jobs, I've sold things, I've cut spending to bare minimum. Repeat and repeat again. Nothing budges. 'Barely surviving' has become the norm. For years. I have thought many times, "it HAS to turn around now" or "this is finally what will turn the tide in my favor." Nothing. So watching this stark reminder of a very specific time in recent history when I was spinning wheels only to land in defeat after defeat was downright demoralizing. It's a mere two days into a new year, and already the stark reality of my financial conundrums assault me just like they always have - and now this show had done the same.

But something different happened this time. I actually thought for a minute about how I could frame what I was feeling in a different way than I would have previously (because CLEARLY that type of thinking isn't getting me anywhere.) Sure enough, I was able to remind myself that while I don't have much evidence to prove that things will change soon, I can choose to have hope instead of wallow in self-pity. Plus, there are some circumstances that occurred before the break that have given me profound clarity that I didn't have before. And I've certainly learned from the past what doesn't work, so I can move forward from that position as well.

What really got me though was as I was letting the negative mentality go and reminding myself of more hope-driven scenarios, I realized that we were watching the End of an Era. The E N D. Final. No more. The Eras Tour phenomenon lasted...two and a half years. And now, it's over.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But that definitely gave teeth to my hope that maybe this two and half year era of MY life is also ending! Maybe this wasn't meant to be a beacon of defeat, but rather quite the opposite.

Again, I don't have a crystal ball and I could easily wake up tomorrow to more grim realities, but I think I might just believe that something is shifting, choose hope for it all, and that 300 take-out coffees later I can look back and say how everything has changed. And we'll sing hallelujah.