440. iPad Kid

Rachel found a simple pleasure to distract her from some of the heavy things in her life: iPad games. 

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My name is Rachel, and It’s Going To Be OK. Things have been a little tough the past few months. You know, classic election anxiety, doom spiraling.

The weather in my area has been pretty dangerous. My poor dog has herniated a disc in his back, so we’re dealing with that. Just not great vibes around here, to be honest.

So I decided to do something to treat myself, and I bought an iPad. I bought an iPad and I bought the little pencil that goes with the iPad. And I don’t need an iPad.

I’m almost 30. I have a personal laptop and a work laptop and a phone. I didn’t need an iPad, but I wanted one.

And every night around 9 o’clock, I lay down on my couch and I put on a record or I put on a podcast or Great British Bake Off in the background. And I play games. I play games on my iPad.

I turn on Do Not Disturb. There’s nothing coming through. And I become, you know, an entrepreneur.

I run a farm. I run a bakery. I run a pizza shop.

I’ve got coloring games. I’ve got games like classic games like Candy Crush. I’ve got those silly games that you get the dumb ads for.

I fall for those every time. I download all those games and I play them on my iPad. And it is so nice to turn off my brain and feel like a kid again.

And life hack, if you play on your iPad, it does not contribute to your iPhone screen time.

So when that notification comes through, I don’t feel quite as badly because I have, you know, directed some of that screen time away from my phone to my iPad. Not great. Still screen time.

Makes me feel better when that number is lower. Yeah. So you don’t have to buy an iPad, but like download a fun game on your phone, you know?

Tune out for a minute. The world is still going to be there when you tune back in. Yeah.

My iPad is why I think it’s going to be OK.

I’m Nora McInerny. This is It’s Going To Be OK. We love hearing your OK things.

You can email them to us, Igtbo at feelingsand.co. You can call and leave a voicemail. We got a new number, 502-388-OKAY.

Feelings and Co. is a bunch of people who love feelings, including Claire McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Grace Barry, and Amanda Romani mixed this episode, and our theme music is By Secret Audio.