See You at the Airport

Leaving Pennsylvania is never easy. It's where I grew up, it's where the majority of my family lives. And every time the car leaves Beaver and heads towards the airport I get the same sad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I don't feel like I'm going home, I feel like I'm leaving home.

I remember meeting my Principal before starting kindergarten. I remember catching fireflies in jars with my cousins and playing chameleon with my grandma. It's where my uncle taught me how to drive and where I picked out my first little baby kitten when I was five.

There were family dinners and slipping beneath the table with my cousin so that we could sneak off to go play Playstation. We would slide around on the kitchen floor in our socks and pretend that bunk beds were rocket ships. There were fireworks on hilltops bursting above bridges on the 4th of July and Super Bowl parties with black and yellow chips.

I slept on Snoopy sheets at my grandma Barb's and watched Regis and Kathie Lee with my grandparents in the morning. I sat on my Grandpa Mike's lap and watched Grandma Helen make lunch. We'd stay up late, my grandma and I, and bead rosaries.

It's where my babysitter walked me to her house and where I learned how to ride a bike. My uncle would pull out my loose teeth and I'd get a silver dollar if I put them under my pillow. My room was pink and my world was small and good.

Pennsylvania is... Allegheny and Moon Township. It's the Steelers and getting fries on your salad. It's Beaver and Meadville and Erie and Edinboro and Conneaut Lake and Presque Isle and Titusville and being able to say "It's a Burgh thing." It's walking through Campbell's pottery and stopping at amish furniture stores and bakeries on the way home. It's how the trees glow a neon green after a good rain. It's yard sales and neighbors who would do anything for you. It's where my family is.

I begin to miss it even before we leave. I think I might belong there.