#marilyn also suffered from never being able to turn her intense sensitivity and her love off and the burdens that brought with it

[septembersghost]

thinking about the quote from the end of Elvis, "

I’ll tell you what killed him. It was love. His love for all of you.

That voice rang out, and he sang with all his life."

and the reblogged ask about Taylor, and I know people don't want to hear this because we loved interacting with her and miss her, but I'm glad she has distance, im glad she's not killing herself for that love anymore.

i've touched on this a bit in comments with my friend @joons, who wrote really lovely meta about this here, and i'm going to quote her: "elvis, as a man, had such a generous spirit that no one—not his wife or manager or friends or fans—could stop him from digging deep and giving, even when it cost him everything. when his body was failing, his friends would ask him to postpone tours, to rest, to heal. and all he would do is gently smile and say, “it’ll be all right. don’t worry about it.” we may think the colonel is treating love lightly by bringing it up as a factor in elvis’ death, but this pivot in focus actually brings us the closest we ever get to knowing who elvis really was (something elvis himself promised he would reveal to his audience early in the film). his generosity is why he was so loved, and the colonel suggests it was his fatal flaw, that he cared so much about sharing his wealth, his talents, and himself with others that he did not care how much it hurt him. or rather, he did care, but he did not know how to stop sharing whatever he could to make other people happy, instead of attending to his own happiness. he gave people his trust and continued giving it long after they had stopped deserving it. and maybe wishing it had been different would be to wish elvis weren’t elvis."

the movie by default made me think about taylor quite a bit, despite the many clear differences, there are unavoidable similarities when it comes to the types of artists they are, who bare so much of themselves and are constantly giving and shimmering and trying and working to connect to their audiences. it's something taylor has addressed several times now, the rippling whisper of that anxiety and the clear slashed wound of it has been appearing in her work for years, and has crystallized further in her most recent music. i mentioned to chelsea how elvis made me think of dear reader (if it feels like a trap, you're already in one is so "suspicious minds" in the way it was utilized in the film, and never take advice from someone who's falling apart/so i wander through these nights, i prefer hiding in plain sight/my fourth drink in my hand/these desperate prayers of a cursed man/spilling out to you for free/but darling, darling, please/you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking viscerally made me think of him the first time i heard it after seeing the film). her fears about others seeing right through her, drunk as we watch her shattered edges glisten, that she doesn't do enough, that it's exhausting to root for her, that she desperately has tried her best and wanted to be loved (and make it seem effortless), that she shines so bright but that in itself is a kind of curse, that her desire to succeed is also an irredeemable quality, "your kindness is fake. your pain is manipulative,"...will you still want me when i'm nothing new?...it's splashed like a bloodstain all over her music and is such a sad, distressing facet of what she's gone through, but i also think there's an inherent quality in this that certain artists have - this wellspring of humanity, this boundless love that has nowhere else to go and springs forth from the music, the act of creating art, the euphoric feeling of performing, the intensity of love they feel from fans that, we have to acknowledge, can never be fully balanced or reciprocal because of the necessary and natural boundaries between us. i think taylor gave so much of herself when she was younger that it was corrosive to her person. she was struggling in such a way personally and still striving without end to be respected and embraced, and she gave a lot of that unfailingly to fans, maybe because she felt she had to as an extension of gratitude, maybe because she didn't feel loved and safe elsewhere, and also because she does feel a real sense of love in that way. but i think it was very hard on her too, and untenable. you can never reach everyone. you can never make everyone happy. you can never help everyone who needs help. you can never give all the love you wish you could give. it's a beautiful and admirable and even spiritual thing to share, but when does the line need to be drawn when you have to attend to your own needs and humanity first before collapsing under the weight of it?

all this said, i too am glad she's got a much healthier balance now, is very steadily loved in her daily life by a partner who gives her a sense of stability and quiet, and that she doesn't feel the need to give so much of herself away, outside of all the vulnerability within her art. it doesn't mean she doesn't care for us, i believe she means it whenever she thanks us, whenever she says she owes her career to us or she creates things for fun with us in mind (the easter eggs in the bejeweled video, as a recent example. she took a song about her feeling hurt and unappreciated, sadness became my whole sky, and wanting to sparkle again, and reinterpreted it visually to include her fans as a positive aspect), but i also think she's learned what she doesn't have to sacrifice.

there's an unerring empathy in the tragedy of elvis not knowing when to stop, how sincere that love he had was, how that itself was a type of defiance. "he loved and he gave, and he couldn’t do otherwise no matter how much people tried to stop him. and that simple truth is one last great gift." i do believe this endures and is a connective gift.

still, there's a strength in learning how to stopper that outpouring of oneself, one's heart and soul and love, too, and i do find that i'm thankful she's learned that, even when we miss her engaging as much, knowing she has a better sense of peace takes precedence. that love doesn't have to be fatal anymore. she's learned how to let it have its respite instead.