I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Am I Taylor Swift?

So Taylor Swift has a song called, well, read the title of this post.

The background to that song is that Taylor Swift and her long time boyfriend of 7 years, Joe Alwyn, the man with whom she wrote so many love songs, right through the albums Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights, broke up during the start of her Eras tour. The professional that she is, nevertheless proceeded with the tour, singing these songs, some of which she wrote directly about Joe, whilst obviously crying inside because almost nobody knew what she was going through, and even the people that did couldn't do anything to change it. Love is a thing between two people. If that isn't working due to personality, or really any irreconcilable differences then it isn't working and no outside support in the world can change that reality.

So I'm going through a similar situation. My boyfriend and I mutually decided to break up after just over a year of being in a relationship on Tuesday night. It was a mutual decision and it was amicable, we both I cried more than I thought possible over the next 24 hours, had a helpful session with my therapist, luckily work that day involved mostly checking the copy and formatting of some dry legal terms and conditions, because if it involved any mental gymnastics then I surely wouldn't have been up to the task.

So the day was hard, one of the toughest days of my life. I would see his things still in my apartment and burst into fresh tears.
The plan was that whilst I am in Vienna for my last two concerts, that he would come over, return my things from his place and fetch all of his things from mine. But for now they remained as they were, even the coffee cup in the sink. It was like looking over the devastation of my heart in the form of a messy apartment haunted by the ghosts of my happiest hours.

I managed to pick myself up enough to pack for my Vienna trip, the city that my great grandfather is from by the way, and head to bed early (early for me at least). I didn't pay for the cargo luggage, so I had to ensure that everything fit into my backpack, that all liquids were in that clear ziplock bag etc. Oh one thing I love about Copenhagen is that at the airport they provide those bags for free just before security, and I had one from my last trip. I separated my liquids and packed the essentials, wondering is vaseline a liquid, "whatever", I thought, "lets not risk it and put it in the bag. But now the hand sanitiser doesn't quite fit. Whatever, I made it work.".

I was then laying in bed, about to fall asleep when my watch buzzed with a notification. Shit I thought, I meant to put that in sleep mode. That mode silences notifications and also enables the various sensors that monitor how well I sleep, or in this case how terribly I would sleep.

So ready to put my watch into sleep mode, I see the notification from an app called Swift Alert, an app I wish I had thought about, which gathers all Taylor Swift news in one place, has games of predicting the outfits of the upcoming show, has links to live streams and has trackers for the set list and suprise songs and any unexpected happenings.

All shows in Vienna cancelled I read. Well this is not great. I searched on Google News for details and saw a bunch of articles explaining how there was a terrorist plot that was thwarted in Vienna, planning to attack the stadium. All the articles said that the show would proceed as normal, that there would be extra security measures so please arrive early. I concluded that the Swift Alert app was incorrect. Then I got a bunch of WhatsApps from my friends, both the Swifties and the non-Swifties-but-supportive-of-my-hobby (everyone say "Hi Matteo", he is a great friend and very supportive of the adventure of mine, always checking in which city I've been in) with links to more news articles.

I saw that there was now mixed news that the shows might indeed be fully cancelled. I hunted around the internet, my sleep before the flight time now narrowing to less than 5 hours sleep if I fell asleep right away, and those of you who know me well, know that is less than half the sleep that this hibernating bear needs. I checked the Taylor Nation official instagram and it confirmed that the shows were indeed fully cancelled.

The news then coallesced into a uniform report that all shows were cancelled. One of my friends asked me about travel insurance. I considered it, and then remembered that since I signed up for the cancellation insurance add on only after I booked my tickets, it meant that it wouldn't be covered. The hotel that I booked and the flights were non refundable.

So that was the second most disappointing thing that happened to me in the past 24 hours. The break up hurt more of course, and I have seen the concert 5 times so far, but I was really looking forward to these last 2 the most, the very last one was actually the first ticket that I bought, with the VIP package and the best seats. So my heart was breaking all over again. I don't know when the pain from the break up will stop either, because sometimes it feels like a shard of ice in my heart, other times it feels like a heavy wet blanket weighing me down, other times it feels like a filter over my eyes turning everything darker and removing the colour, other times it feels like a rollercoaster of varying degrees of sadness.

@dblumenau Yay #taylorswift #erastour #viennaerastour ♬ original sound - dblumenau

I woke up and went to the airport, the security direction person saw my t-shirt and put me through to fast track, perhaps she is a Swiftie or at least had seen the news. When I travel I also take a Stanley thermos filled with ice, which counts as a solid not a liquid. As I went through the metal detector it dinged angrily at me. I had to go through twice. Then my bag got pulled aside because of the ice, some of it had melted into water. Luckily since it's Copenhagen it's the worlds friendliest and kindest airport security. The lady there asked me if I would drink the few drops of water from the flask so that I could proceed. Then my backpack got the pull aside, turns out I was so groggy I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag. So around the machine it goes. Then there is another muttering, and it turns out that since my iPad was in my backback, it must go through again, yes I was groggy and forgot that too. Then it went through again and the lady said that it was selected for screening. So she swabbed around it with something and I told her, well this is fun. I'm off to Vienna to NOT see Taylor Swift in concert. And my boyfriend and I just broke up. Well she said, these things come in three's. I replied, "Oh lovely what is the third thing". She quickly answered, "It's this, the extra security steps. Now you have had all 3.". I smiled and she said, "Everything will be okay. It will be okay.". Told you, Copenhagen airport security. Just the kindest.

So here I sit, at the airport, waiting for my gate to open, Fuck it! I thought, I have the vacation days approved from work, Vienna is still supposed to be a great city to visit, I'm just going to go ahead with the trip and make the most of it. I'm off to the plane now to try and make the most of Wien. Another way of saying that is, "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart".