Fall in New York really is bleak. Never would I have imagined that no amount of rain in New Haven could have prepared me for even more rain that punctually shrouded the weekends. I thought days would stretch with boredom; my unemployment proved otherwise. I would like to absolve my 1pm wake up; how could I live if not for the constant self-indulgence. But a part of the blame has to be placed on the shortening days and, yes, the rain.

My story with 1989 took place in Fall. For that thirteen year-old, the songs painted a dream life. Move to a big city, leave country music behind, experience a breakup or two. But no matter, you still end up clean — a fairytale. I probably did believe in love back then, because love, as penned by Swift, was so exciting and raw and perfect and calamitous and treacherous and satirical and free. I cannot say that the prospect of being a Swiftian protagonist never crossed my mind.

But as I sit streaming the reissue (Taylor’s Version), it hits me that 1989 was not even Taylor Swift’s own life, let alone for it to be mine. Her real life is a lot less polished, a lot less bulletproof, much more unhinged. My real life, as it turns out, would be a lot more alone, a lot more loveless, and never as exciting as I imagined.

It was Fall in New York when I won the lottery to go to a musical paid for by my college. The show was nothing spectacular, but strolling the metropolitan streets to find boba was the first dose of adulthood for that freshman me. The city carried unlimited stories waiting to be told. Magic to be witnessed, tricks to be uncovered, fiction to be held as truth.

Now, the window at my sublease stares directly into the United Nations headquarters. If it’s not raining, I can see the brightly-lit Manhattan skyline at night. I’m sure, in fact, I know magic is happening. Politics is happening. Sex in the City is happening, in real life, in one of those squares of light in the sea of squares of light. But I am not witnessing, uncovering, or holding. None of those belong to me.

Or perhaps I don’t belong in this world. I should be in a monastery in the mountains north of Kathmandu. Because I don’t mind the spatial and temporal isolation from the city’s pulsing dynamics. I don't want my edges to sound intentional — after all, I am beyond the age to claim them without embarrassment — but increasingly I feel ready to embrace my anti-social self.

If being boring is a sin, I’ll gladly take hell. Enjoying repetition is enjoying a greater percentage of life. Because habituation limits excitement to be few and far between, and ensures that the majority of life will be a constant baseline of calm. I remember a meticulous schedule governed my elementary school in China. Wake up, exercise, breakfast, class, lunch. Nap, class, field time, dinner. Wash up, class, lights out. Time dragged on when days were regimented. Snow on the bamboo bushes took forever to melt. I lay thinking, in bed, as the sun and moon took turns to shine in my eyes. I never minded the confines of boarding school back then.

And I don’t mind the confines of a window now. Sure, I could choose to not be alone, but I am fine with being alone. I don’t want to date. Or go out to drink when I can drink by myself. I don’t get fomo. I am satisfied with a simple life.

My old imaginations don’t fit me anymore. I graduated from consumerism to solitude. I’ll never share the fate of a Swiftian protagonist. I accept that. I accept all of those. Until someone disproves solipsism, I will remain convinced that accepting loneliness requires accepting your uniqueness, quirks, edges. Only then can you enjoy life by yourself, not necessarily understood by others, not bound by the outside world.

So I thought I would hate the chaos in New York. Turns out I just hate the rain.

What I have been noticing, however, is that everything that brings me to tears are the things I cannot be. The tension between the diametric realist and dreamer in me makes me emotional, apparently. So I still enjoy 1989 (Taylor’s Version) despite knowing my life can’t be a fairytale because I still am a believer in fairytales (for others, in general).

Because after Winter there’ll be Spring. It is all very interesting, what is happening. It might never come, but I’ll be waiting.