I Miss Who I Was During The Eras Tour. Here’s How I’m Reclaiming My Power

The show might well be over, but I’m just getting started.

This one is for everyone who came home from the Eras Tour a different person.

It’s been over a year since The Eras Tour officially ended. And even though for me, located in South America, it ended on 20 November 2023, I still talk about it to everyone who’ll listen, like it was the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. And honestly? That might well be the case.

It’s important to remember the huge impact of this tour. Every award show had a category for it to win. Every record it broke made headlines. The Eras Tour ended its run as the highest-grossing concert tour in history -over $2 billion in sales, six Guinness World Records, a Tour of the Century title that felt almost too small for what it actually was – the list goes on. And still, none of those numbers come close to explaining what I means to me when I say it changed my life.

I want to tell you this story from the beginning. And that is way, way before the actual dates of the concert itself. 

For context: Taylor Swift has never toured in my country.

For most of my life, watching her live was the kind of thing I kept in my “maybe someday” category. It was never a plan but more of a dream – one that got much bigger when I caught a blurry, intermittently-connected live stream of the opening night from the comfort of my home on TikTok. 

But when the announcement came through that Latin American dates were to be added to the run, I felt the ground shift. Even if she still wasn’t coming to my country, she was close enough for my chances of catching her live to become possible. And that was enough.

So I got to work. I planned every detail of a trip that was, by any measure, a lot: the flights, the budget, the logistics, the outfits, the friendship bracelets. It took real effort – economic, emotional, organisational – but it awakened this version of me that just figured things out without flinching. 

And I think this is one of the reasons this tour was so unforgettable. It didn’t last just three hours and 45 minutes (which is already a lot), but for many, it was an event that lasted months. The experience didn’t just start when the lights went down, and the countdown began on the screens. For me, it started at least seven months earlier. I was in group chats planning the fan activations, the mass production of friendship bracelets until 1 a.m., and very carefully curating selections of outfits for the whole trip. 

But in all of that, I realised I wasn’t alone in this effort. Not even close. 

I always knew we Swifties were one of the bigger fandoms, but I didn’t expect to encounter such a large community moving forward with the same purpose. That’s the thing about the Eras Tour that’s hardest to explain to someone who wasn’t there: it didn’t just ask you to show up. It asked you to commit. To reorganise your life around something you loved, loudly and without apology. And so I did. We all did.

My first shock was at the airport’s boarding gate. I noticed a lot of girls already adorned with friendship bracelets, complementing each other’s airport outfits, and already talking to one another like they already knew each other. I traded bracelets at the airport. I traded bracelets at Brazilian immigration. I traded bracelets on Copacabana Beach, surrounded by people with Taylor Swift merch, from a lot of countries that I could barely count.

I was making friends at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, thousands of miles from home. We were all bonded by the same destination, and making the same dream finally possible. 

For that whole weekend, Rio de Janeiro didn’t feel just like a Brazilian city. It felt like a city that belonged to all of us – Swifties from every corner of Latin America who, even though we had all fought the great war to get there, felt like family. 

We were everywhere, and we recognised each other instantly. We asked each other’s country, age and favourite era.  I had never seen a community like that before. I know it happened in American cities, too, but it still caught me off guard in the best way possible. I was in a place where I could be a hundred per cent myself, surrounded by people celebrating the exact same thing. It felt like a revelation. But it also felt like a homecoming.

What does it mean to belong somewhere you’ve never been, with people you’ve never met, surrounded by a language you don’t understand? I found out in Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of seventy thousand strangers, at a Taylor Swift concert.

I didn’t speak Portuguese. I didn’t know anyone. I just had my clear bag with my friendship bracelets to trade and my power bank. 

I remember most of my show, though the so-talked-about concert amnesia is very real for a three-hour set. But there’s something that comes to mind clear as water, and that I hope to never forget. When I got to my spot on the floor, all alone, with my place secured, I felt it: that overwhelming feeling of hearing voices in a language you don’t understand, realising you’re very far from home.

The feeling didn’t last long, though. Because I met a beautiful group of girls who weren’t friends with each other either, but were just close enough on the floor to spend the five-hour wait together. One of them was there with her mom. They invited me into their circle and tried to talk to me. Portuguese and Spanish weren’t quite working, so we ended up speaking in English. They were so kind, and I still regret not asking them for their Instagrams to stay in contact after the show. When it started raining, the mother handed me a spare raincoat she had, because I’d forgotten mine. She also shared some snacks with us. Feeling so welcomed was one of the most defining moments of the whole experience, and something that makes this very fan culture so incredibly special.

I lost them when the show ended, and it was just me again, trying to find the way back to the hotel. But even then, in the line outside the stadium and on the metro packed with sequins and cowboy hats, I never felt alone. I understood it there – that there is this specific kind of intimacy that forms between people who share the same obsession. You don’t need words for it. You just hold up your wrist full of bracelets, and someone smiles back like they already know you. 

When I told the people back home about my plan, they thought I was brave. I wasn’t sure if I was – but since then, I confirmed it. Something new was born there: a braver version of me. One who was less afraid of being seen. 

I was lucky enough to attend twice. The first time, I was close enough to the stage to see her move, to feel the bass in my chest, to be blinded by the sparkling dresses and to actually say hi, not just to her, but to Kam Sanders and Paul Sidoti. It was a rain show. And it was overwhelming in the best possible way. 

The second time, I was far, and I mean far. Taylor was just a small glowing figure in the distance, and the screens became my main window into the show. You may think that it would have felt like less, but it didn’t. 

From the back, I saw something I couldn’t have seen from the front: the crowd. My dearest community. Thousands of people moving together, screaming, crying, dancing and celebrating. 

From that distance, the concert stopped being a performance and became something closer to a mirror. I could see the reflection of that girl who had chosen, deliberately, to be fully present for something she had only ever dreamed of. I saw myself in the faces of hundreds of people like me. I didn’t know how much I needed to see that.

Because here’s what I’ve come to understand, three years later: the Eras Tour didn’t create that person. It just gave her permission to exist. 

The bravery of travelling alone, the ease to connect with strangers, the willingness to be moved – none of that came from Taylor Swift, or a stadium, or a setlist, or a surprise song. It came from a decision I made quietly and without fanfare: to show up for something I loved without waiting for the circumstances to be perfect.

And there’s something quietly radical about that. In this world where we are constantly asked to justify our passions, to be reasonable about what we love, thousands of people stood in the same place and refused to apologise for caring that much. 

When the concert’s high faded, I think that’s the power worth reclaiming – the permission. The habit of choosing deliberately to be present for the things that matter. To allow yourself to reorganise your life, even in small ways, around what actually makes you feel alive. The bravery. The pursuit of joy. The belonging. The community. 

After that week, regular life slowly came back. The routines and obligations might have tried to erase who I was there. But I keep going back to my light-up bracelet, making it shine – making myself shine again. 

The Eras Tour is over. But I don’t think there’s something to reclaim, so much as something to never forget. Who I was there didn’t disappear. She’s just waiting for me to stop treating her like she only comes out for special occasions. 

When I ask myself who I am without a wristful of friendship bracelets, I have to remember: I might still be in my best dress, fearless.