The Person Behind The Website
I feel like I never introduced myself to this thing, so today, I’m going to just talk about myself. This is really the tip of the iceberg but enough for those who don’t know me, or don’t remember much about me.
My name is Taylor Gathings. It’s pronounced “gahh-things”. Not gatherings or gaythings. Gathings. I will correct you every time. A little family fact, I don’t share the same last name as most of my family on my dad’s side, since some have the “S” and others don’t. I love my last name, so much so that I have a gold-plated necklace of it, and I’m keeping it whenever I get married.
I have two middle names which makes me feel special considering I’ve always felt like I had a basic first name. One of them is in my Instagram bio, Alexis. The other is for me and whoever else bothers to ask to know.
I’m from Memphis, Tennessee. For those who actually know the area and try to check me for being specific, I lived in real Memphis the first half of my life and Cordova the second half.
I was born on what I like to call the Christmas of January. Not because I think I’m Jesus or anything. It’s just that Christmas is on the 25th of December and mine is… well I think you get the picture. I keep my tree up until my birthday because of this logic.
This makes me an Aquarius if zodiac signs/astrology mean anything to you. I’m not one of those people who won’t befriend someone once I find out they’re an Aries, but I do compare people I know with the same one. I think it’s a little annoying when people discredit zodiac signs entirely. I think God made everything with intentionality and everyone so beautifully unique, that it does play a part in who you are. Even if you don’t believe in God, you’re telling me the stars, sun, and moon aligned in a certain way on the day and time you were born, and it doesn’t make a little bit of sense that someone born on that day and time would be similar??? You just want to be different so bad.
Speaking of my relationship with God, that’s a rocky thing. There’s about two things that I think really took a hit to how I view God and church. First, was the predominantly white Christian private school that I attended for eleven years. They stood up in our impressionable faces talking about the hard “seasons” of life and how we must to “lean in” to His word during them, or that “we are called to love one another” and in the same breath, there were chapels full of hatred being spewed about homosexuality. Not to forget, there were no talks of the racial and class issues found at that very institution, of course. Some things were just too controversial for the Director of Student Ministries to touch I guess. I say all that to say, their version of church just felt unwelcoming and superficial.
The second was this line in a Childish Gambino song, “yaphet kotto (freestyle)” that asks “What’s the point? I don’t know. Why am I here? Why am I alive? Why do you care?”. If you know anything about God or biblical teachings, it’s that He’s omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and benevolent. So why am I here if God already knows what’s going to happen to me once I leave this earth? He created me despite knowing if I was destined for Hell or not—not the fiery one that pilgrims were scared into believing, but one that’s the complete absence of love. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how much free will He’s actually given us if we’re made with the knowledge that some just won’t follow Him and will be doomed. Seems like a funny thing to allow to happen if we’re all loved you know?
I still believe in God despite that last little tangent. That might be strange but I think if you don’t ever question your faith or any system you’re in for that matter, then you’re kind of a cog in the machine. I’m just hoping to find more answers about predestination through prayer and guidance. Trying to “Lean not on my own understanding” —Proverbs 3:5. This is a little word to my manager’s sermon today.
I’m 21 currently. I enjoy bars, but parties not so much. I’m not sure why, just not my vibe.
I’m very expressive and opinionated. You’ll know how I feel about something by my face. Since I can’t hide anything, I might as well be honest. If you ask me how I feel about something, I’ll let you know. I might just tell you willingly so that it’s not an internal debate later. I think it’s unhealthy to bottle up feelings. And it’s definitely a waste of people’s time to be upset about something and not communicate it.
I’m a momma’s girl. I talk to her almost every day. If you looked up unconditional love in a dictionary and didn’t see some picture of God, I think she’d be there. I have two siblings, a half-brother who’s a few years older and Brooke, my ten-year-old sister who can drive me up a wall and in five minutes make me laugh my ass off. I call her “Ladybug”.
Music is big for me. I like all types besides country and heavy metal. My favorite artists are Tyler, the Creator, Steve Lacy, Frank Ocean, Daniel Caesar, and Otis Redding.
I love when people send me songs or put me on to new shit. I play this game with people called rhythm roulette, where you and the other person/people choose different topics pick songs that go with them, and play it for each other. It’s a really easy way to pass the time and expand your music taste. For extra flare, have a notebook or shared note of y’all rating the songs. Let me know if I should drop the categories.
I’m not a film or cinema person. Like I’ll never go out of my way to search out gems, but if I’m recommended one, I’ll watch it. My favorite movies right now are Everything Everywhere All at Once, Waves, and Pretty in Pink. I went through an insane 80s movie binge in middle school because I was in love with Andrew McCarthy in St. Elmo’s Fire & Mannequin. I will also run to theaters if a new animated movie comes out. I love cartoons—not anime though. I feel like every man I’ve come in contact with this year has asked me about this, so now I think I refuse to try it out of spite.
I want to get into reading so I’ve made a plan to try to read banned books. Plus almost every successful person does it so that they never stop learning, and Lord knows, I can’t be poor. Not in my DNA.
I like to shop. I thrift for statement pieces & pants (my dark brown corduroys can’t wait to see the light of day once the sun stops punishing Fayetteville), and add things to my cart for basics and trendy items. Add shoes to that online shopping list too. My feet are kind of big, and I’m sorry, the raggedy sandals at Goodwill aren’t cutting it.
I hate the summer and winter. Extreme temperatures just don’t suit me.
I like playing games when I meet new people since the ones I pick always teach me a lot about the person upfront. My favorite is Overrated/Underrated. It’s even better to play on dates—however, I’ve only had one person that I was seeing play in a way I enjoyed. We played together on our first date at a place downtown called Memphis Chess Club, and he truly set the standard.
I enjoy being around people a ton. Maybe not a lot of people at once, but one-on-ones and groups of a handful are just my speed. I like knowing people on more than a surface level. They teach me a lot, make me think with their own thoughts & opinions, and are the drives to all of the topics that I write about.
The last thing that I’ll tell you all is that I started writing after my freshman-year English professor implored me to keep doing it, maybe even studying it. I wasn’t so sure if majoring in English or journalism would support my desired lifestyle after college, so I do it as a hobby. Yet, I’m trying to make moves to get more exposure since I have this one friend who is convinced it could go somewhere.
Writing allows me to get all of my thoughts together and effectively communicate them—which is why I didn’t take to YouTube or Tiktok. Plus I be forgetting everything someone says, so having sentences I can go back and analyze is perfect. I like giving other’s opportunities that I would like to have as well, ya know?
I cannot express this enough, but y’all’s feedback and engagement with what I put out means the world to me. This hobby has definitely allowed me to connect with people that I honestly wrote off as people I once knew or knew of. Y’all’s support makes me feel like I’m doing something that I was meant to do.
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you feel like you know me a little better!
P.S. You can now subscribe to my website for updates on all of my posts! I’m really trying to elevate & be better at this marketing thing since I will be graduating with a degree in it so . . .
