The End of an Era(s Tour)

How the Eras Tour renewed my faith in humanity & healed years of grief.

I never really paid attention to the first go round of my daughter asking for Eras Tour tickets back in 2022 when the tour was announced. It was nothing short of an olympic event for people to fight TicketMaster for tickets during that initial sale. Shit, honestly I am glad I sat that go-round out.

It was literally so bad there were Congressional Hearings about it.

Over the course of the Eras Tour starting to criss cross across America it became more and more clear this wasn’t just a concert. It was so much more. A safe space for girls to be unapologetically too much. It was an experience for mothers and daughters, or women and their friends to come together and bond in a way we very rarely see from women this day and age.

Opening up the space to the safe men in our lives who support our joy and passions. Let their hair down with us. Propose to that longtime girlfriend during Love Story, or participating by donning a matching outfit with their daughter.

The friendship bracelets, the well thought out outfits with so much TLC touching every little detail, and the safe space it created for all of the Swifties tens of thousands strong to enjoy the marathon of a concert globally.

When I saw the picture it was creating in our country I was determined to share that with my daughter somehow. At this point in time though, the US dates were sold out and my only hope would be trying desperately to find a date in Europe that would work alongside my summer hosted TrovaTrip I had booked to host in Norway.

Thankfully in planning a year prior, I had added a plus one on to the trip not even thinking this is what it would morph into. And it would be a chance post on threads of all places… in the very early days of threads that would make it all come together.

The weekend following the end of my trip, Taylor Swift would be in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I knew it was either that weekend or the weekend prior, which I believe may have been in Dublin. Those were my only chances. And let me tell you, navigating Ticketmaster in Dutch at first wasn't fun.

I made a post on threads for the fuck of it looking for 2 Eras Tour tickets for any night of the Amsterdam dates. And out of fucking nowhere an angel appeared. Amy, who also lives here in Florida had a code to buy tickets for the show and only needed 2. She was planning on going to the show with her BFF. I jumped out of my skin at the opportunity to buy the other two.

@ the Eras Tour with Amy & Amy

At first I didn’t want to tell my daughter, but if we are being completely honest I can’t keep a secret worth a shit. The second the tickets were purchased and it was a done deal the planning began but it wouldn’t be until we left for the trip itself that it would become so much more than a concert.

Decades earlier concerts had been a way of life for me with my best friend by my side. My late sister. From the age of roughly thirteen until she would pass away in 2011, concerts were our thing.

This bitch had the gift of winning every concert ticket known to mankind from the radio, fuck… dating ourselves with that one. If we couldn’t win them, we were buying them. Cinderella, Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Poison, Boys II Men, Marilyn Manson, Def Leopard, the list goes on and on. Especially from the time I was like 18-21… we hit it hard. All of those core years of development for me. The years that helped to shape me as the person I became were all born of those memories and experiences.

And it wouldn’t genuinely hit me until I sat alone at the dining room table of our hotel suite in Amsterdam the night before the concert, writing a note on a scratch piece of hotel paper that it would all come into perspective.

One of those real full circle moments in life.

I knew my sister was with me. And I knew all these moments and once in a lifetime experiences we were sharing together was healing the gaping void the loss of my sister had left behind in 2011. The same year my daughter was born. It would take thirteen years to get to this point of acceptance with everything that life has dealt me in terms of loss. It’s something we all realistically have to go through at some point in time, but sometimes those losses are so profound it changes who we are as a human being.

As a person.

I firmly believe that is what happened when Dawn died. There was no reality in which I thought I would ever be at peace with the loss of my sister. But through the growth of my relationship with my own daughter it has given me exactly that. The peace.

So while the critics and the cynics want to bitch and moan about Taylor Swift and her break up songs… I know I can smile in the face of each and every hater out there with the peace of mind this entire experience has given me at the absolutely free expense of streaming her music that we love.

And maybe the $550 U.S. I paid for two floor seats next to the stage because they can’t price gouge like they do here in the US overseas.

The smiles and joy every minute of it brought my daughter… to me is fucking priceless.

As the Eras Tour comes to an end this weekend with the final dates in Vancouver, it’s hard for us to all say goodbye to it. I wish we could do it annually, but come on… we all know that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t want to say goodbye to the grainy live-feeds my daughter brings me on the couch, wondering what surprise songs tonight will bring. I do know going into this weekend, I will hug her just a little bit tighter knowing this all coming to an end is going to do a number on both of us.

So thank you Taylor, for creating this all. The music, the culture, the space that we all felt safe and secure to be ourselves and heal… together.

To the Swifties, thank you for being the beautiful, vibrant, bold, loving, dedicated, caring souls you are. Each and every one of you should be proud of the community you’ve created.

I’ll forever be grateful.

-Oz

What died didn't stay dead
What died didn't stay dead
You're alive, you're alive in my head

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