Nostalgia

I have tired from music. The crap that is on the radio is lame. The CDs in my car are so overplayed that I'm starting to hate my favorite bands. Solution: my old iPod Nano, you know... the teal tall and skinny one with just the square face. I forgot that it has been sitting in my center console for over a year now unplayed. Once turned on, tons of memories came back from old times. I have some great music on that little thing. This morning, a Mates of State song came on (I'm even listening to it as I type this). The have brought back the most nostalgia so far.

(Amanda and I at the Mates of State Show)

(The show at Club Downunder I'm pretty sure we were standing right where the picture cuts off under the keyboard. We were super close.)

The Mates of State show at Club Downunder on FSU campus was the first concert I went to that actually counts. It is also the first "show" where I learned the difference between the words "show" and "concert." It was on a Sunday. I remember my bishop telling me that it was okay for me to go because I'm not doing it every single Sunday. This was a huge relief. My best friend Amanda LOVES them and I have always liked them. She put their albums on the exact iPod I just mentioned before so I could listen to them while walking around FSU's beautiful campus the week before. This, she said, would help me feel prepared for the show. Thanks to that show and that playlist, I automatically associate the Mates of State with FSU and my first semester there, away from home. This morning when the song came on in the car, flashes of walkways through whimsical trees covered in Spanish moss popped into my head as well as waiting for Amanda to let me into her dorm so we could sit on her bed and talk about life. I think of how grown-up I felt as I walked to and from my classes and how beautiful FSU is all year round.

(Amanda's Dorm. I waited on those stair so many times. Her room is the one on the second floor, second in from the stairs; the one in between the mini Christmas trees.)

(The most beautiful walkways ever.)

(I swam in this fountain multiple times.)

This song (in fact this band) makes me yearn for FSU and the life I started there. It was so new, so fresh and so open. I love my life now; I wouldn't trade it for the world. I can't help but feel the nostalgia though. It's strong today. That small time in my life was wonderful and Amanda and the Mates of State have a lot to do with it. They are the only two things that bring up that specific nostalgia that I have for Florida State. I want to go back. Just for today. Just so I can listen to this playlist while I walk around campus.