After graduating college in 1996 and moving to Boston to start my career, I was living simply in a small sunroom in Roslindale, MA with little more than a mattress on the floor when I met a girl at a hometown Thanksgiving party in 1998. We tried to build a long-distance relationship while she finished her last year of college, but the strain of being four hours apart caught up with us. One late night phone call turned into a fight and a breakup that left me heartbroken and alone, and in that quiet moment I wrote “Holding On.” Although we eventually found our way back to each other and moved to Florida together in 1999, that fragile season — and the emotions it stirred — became the foundation of this song.
