TEAMBEAUTIFULKHAOS

“This Is Me Trying”: The Song That Helped Me Survive

Some songs become your favorites. Others become part of your identity. And then there are the songs that find you when you’re barely holding yourself together.

For me, that song is Taylor Swift’s “this is me trying.”

July 24, 2020 — The Day Everything Hit Me

I remember when Taylor Swift released folklore.

It was July 24, 2020.

I was back home in California, trying to rebuild a life after surviving experiences that had fundamentally changed me.

I had recently entered a new relationship with Christopher in February of that year. We were navigating long distance, with him in Colorado and me in California.

I had also escaped an abusive relationship. Even now, the exact timeline of when I finally got out is something I’m still piecing together.

But I knew one thing.

I was no longer where I had been.

Physically, I had made it out.

Emotionally, I was still trying to understand everything I had survived.

And then Taylor released ‘this is me trying’.

I crumbled.

I listened to it on repeat.

I asked so many questions.

Questions about my past. Questions about the choices I had made. Questions about why certain things happened to me. Questions about why I was still hurting when I was supposed to be moving forward.

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

Why did surviving something take so much out of me?

I wasn’t simply grieving the things that had happened.

I was grieving what it had taken to survive them.

The strength I had been forced to find.

The pieces of myself I had lost along the way.

The exhaustion of constantly having to be resilient when all I wanted was to feel safe.

The years spent trying to convince myself that I was okay when, in reality, I was still carrying so much.

I had survived.

But I hadn’t fully processed what survival had cost me.

And suddenly, there was this song.

A song that didn’t demand that I be stronger. That didn’t insist I turn my pain into something beautiful. That didn’t expect me to have everything figured out simply because I had made it through.

It acknowledged something I desperately needed to hear.

Trying counts, even when nobody else can see how hard you’re fighting.

The Timing of It All

Something that has always fascinated me is that Taylor wrote this is me trying in 2020, drawing from emotions and experiences that predated the album.

She’s spoken about how difficult 2016 and 2017 were for her.

And I think about that sometimes.

What if this song had existed during some of my own darkest years?

What if I had heard those words when I was still living through experiences that would eventually change the course of my adulthood?

I genuinely don’t know how I would have handled it.

Because hearing that song in July 2020 was already enough to bring me to my knees.

I wasn’t listening from a place of complete healing.

I was listening from somewhere in the middle.

Somewhere between the person I had been and the person I was desperately trying to become.

Taylor was reflecting on pain.

I was still learning how to live with mine.

Her reflection became my recognition.

And for the first time, I felt like someone had found the words for a battle I couldn’t explain.

Surviving Isn’t the Same as Healing

For much of my adulthood, I believed that surviving meant I was supposed to be okay.

That once I escaped a painful situation, the hardest part should be over.

That moving forward meant leaving everything behind.

But trauma doesn’t work that way.

Neither does grief.

You can leave a place and still carry what happened there.

You can enter a new relationship and still be learning what safety feels like.

You can laugh, go to work, make plans, and appear perfectly fine while quietly fighting battles nobody knows exist.

And you can be grateful for your life while still mourning the person you were before everything changed.

I’ve survived trauma.

I’ve survived heartbreak.

I’ve survived grief that permanently changed the shape of my world.

I’ve had to rebuild myself more than once.

And there were moments when I genuinely didn’t know what the next chapter would look like.

But somehow, I kept going.

Not gracefully.

Not perfectly.

Sometimes not even confidently.

But I kept trying.

July 6, 2024 — Four Words, Permanently

Almost four years after hearing this is me trying for the first time, I made a decision.

On July 6, 2024, I had those four words tattooed on my arm.

this is me trying.

Four small words.

An entire lifetime of meaning.

The song that had once brought me to my knees was now permanently part of me.

Not because I wanted to remember how much I had suffered.

But because I never wanted to forget how hard I had fought to survive.

I wanted something tangible.

A reminder that even on the days when I questioned my progress, even when I struggled to recognize my own strength, I had already overcome things that once felt impossible.

Those words weren’t evidence of failure.

They were evidence of perseverance.

Of showing up.

Of choosing to continue.

Of trying again after life had given me every reason to be exhausted.

And I think that’s what makes this tattoo so meaningful.

It doesn’t say I succeeded at everything.

It doesn’t say I have all the answers.

It doesn’t even say I’m finished healing.

It says something much more important.

I’m still here. And I’m still trying.

October 31, 2026 — The Woman I Became

Fast-forward six years from the first time I heard that song.

On October 31, 2026, I graduated from therapy.

After more than three years of sitting with my therapist,  every single Saturday, I reached a milestone that the woman I was in July 2020 couldn’t have imagined.

My regular weekly sessions came to an end.

I can still return for check-ins when I need them, but this chapter of consistent weekly therapy had reached its conclusion.

And I don’t think I can fully explain what that means to me.

For years, I worked through difficult memories, uncomfortable truths, emotional patterns, boundaries, relationships, and the parts of myself I had struggled to understand.

I learned that healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

That boundaries aren’t cruelty.

That asking for help isn’t weakness.

That progress doesn’t require perfection.

And perhaps most importantly, I began learning how to extend compassion to the person I had spent so many years criticizing.

Myself.

The woman who sat listening to this is me trying on repeat in July 2020 had no idea what was ahead of her.

She didn’t know about the work she would do.

The boundaries she would establish.

The confidence she would slowly build.

The people who would remind her that she deserved kindness, consistency, and respect.

She didn’t know that one day she would look back at her own story and feel something other than pain.

Pride.

Not because everything had magically become easy.

But because she had kept showing up.

And eventually, all those small moments of trying became something extraordinary.

Growth.

What I Wish I Could Tell My 2020 Self

If I could go back to July 24, 2020, I wouldn’t tell myself to stop crying.

I wouldn’t tell myself to turn the song off.

I wouldn’t tell myself that everything happens for a reason.

Because some things simply shouldn’t have happened.

And I don’t believe I need to find something beautiful in every painful experience to justify surviving it.

Instead, I would sit beside that version of myself.

I would let her listen to the song as many times as she needed.

I would let her ask every question.

I would let her grieve.

And when she was ready, I would tell her:

I see you.

I see how hard you’re fighting.

I know you’re exhausted.

I know there are days when you feel like you’re falling behind everyone else.

But you are not failing because you’re still hurting.

You don’t have to prove your pain to deserve compassion.

And you don’t have to become someone extraordinary to make your survival worthwhile.

You already matter.

I would tell her that one day, she would stop seeing herself exclusively through the lens of everything that happened to her.

That she would learn to recognize her own resilience.

That she would laugh loudly again.

Love deeply again.

Trust herself again.

And that one day, she would sit down to write about the song that once made her crumble.

Not because the pain had disappeared.

But because she had finally learned to recognize the woman who carried it.

This Is Me Trying

I think the most beautiful thing about this song is how its meaning has evolved alongside me.

In 2020, it felt like a plea.

Please understand that I’m trying.

Please recognize that I’m doing the best I can.

Please see that surviving has taken everything I have.

In 2024, it became a permanent reminder.

A promise to myself that I would never minimize the strength it took to get here.

And in 2026?

It feels like something else entirely.

A declaration.

I was trying.

I kept trying.

And I am still trying.

But now, I understand that trying isn’t something I need to apologize for.

It’s something I can be proud of.

I don’t have to be completely healed to celebrate my progress.

I don’t have to have every answer.

I don’t have to pretend that my past doesn’t affect me.

And I certainly don’t have to prove my worth through how much pain I can endure.

I am allowed to be proud of the woman I am today while still having compassion for every version of myself who struggled to get here.

Because the truth is, I didn’t just survive my past.

I gave myself the opportunity to have a future.

A future filled with possibilities I couldn’t see in 2020.

And when I look down at those four words on my arm, I don’t just see a Taylor Swift song anymore.

I see July 24, 2020.

I see July 6, 2024.

I see October 31, 2026.

I see every version of myself who kept going when things were difficult.

And I see the woman I am today.

Still learning.

Still growing.

Still healing.

Still trying.

But no longer wondering whether trying is enough.

Because it always mattered.

And so did I.

💜

—

For anyone who has ever felt like their best wasn’t enough, I hope you remember this: You don’t have to be finished healing to be worthy of love, happiness, or a beautiful future.

Sometimes the greatest accomplishment is simply recognizing how far you’ve already come.

This is me trying. And this is me surviving.