Holding on

"I still gotta believe people
Are good at the core
‘Cause if we weren’t, what’s at stake?
Why would we stay to break what we make
And create all these beautiful mistakes"
--George Watsky, "Cardboard Castles"

If anyone has seen my tweets over the past few days, they'll notice that I picked up Watsky's new album. It's absolutely brilliant...even if hip-hop/rap really isn't your thing (and if you've met me, you know it's really NOT my thing). But...I will listen if the lyrics have meaning. And as you can see, these do. Between this and the rest of his album being amazing I have a new CD to blast in my car non-stop.

It's good to remind ourselves that we're worth it. And sometimes it takes a song with carefully constructed lyrics to remind us of that.

I was seriously going to make this a blog about Watsky/Cardboard Castles... But something even bigger has happened. FEEVO HAS AN IPAD APP.

Oh. Wait. I'm the only person excited about this? Oh....

Let me go a bit deeper into it then.

Feevo was a game on Facebook a few years ago. It was popular around the time I was getting ready to graduate from Ashland. Anyone who knows where I was personally in my life at that point knows that was a difficult time for me. I had just gotten out of a serious long-term relationship and I wasn't in the best place. And while I had friends and classes and graduation to think about...I spent my evenings playing this game to occupy my mind so I wouldn't think about things anymore. I needed something to help me focus...and this was it. I played it constantly. And then one day...the game disappeared from Facebook. By the time it was gone I was no longer playing it that much...I had moved on and healed and had other things (see: grad school) to occupy my time.

Lately I've been thinking about that time in my life...and about how that game was one of the things that actually kept me sane through those few months...as sad as that may sound.

Today I saw that Feevo has an iPad app. So I downloaded it just to see what it was still like. What would it make me feel?

And of course...it made me remember quite vividly how I was feeling at the time when I played the game. But the thing is...it's all just memories now. Memories of a time long past...and they don't make me sad anymore.

And more than anything...they make me miss a tiny single bed in a huge bedroom in a huge apartment with three other people who I had some of the best nights in college with. An apartment where we regularly almost burned the place down by microwaving things we shouldn't (like cookies. or pizza.) and a place where we stayed up late talking or playing video games. A place where I took over the living room with thesis work...and a place where we took over the entire living room to reenact Disney songs. A place where jokes were shouted back and forth between rooms and a place we could all call home.

I suppose what my point is in all of this...is to hold on to what keeps you sane. Whether it's your friends...a game on the internet...or a song from a genre that you never thought you'd enjoy as much as you are now.

And for me right now...maybe I'm going to hold on a bit tighter to a few songs that are saying everything I ever wanted to say but didn't have to words to say it.

Sometimes that's all you really need.