SOMETIMES YOU SULK, SOMETIMES YOU BURN
Being home is a constant reminder of that Ray Bradbury story about the rocket pilot: every time he's getting ready to count down and fly into outer space he starts to miss his wife, and every time he's breaking through the atmosphere he starts to miss space. By the time he's entirely back on Earth or entirely back in space he's full-on sick for whatever he doesn't have. I think the comparisons that a college student like me would most likely draw from that image are obvious, so I'll leave them to you.

But it isn't as if I'm totally homesick for here or for Pittsburgh; whichever place I'm calling "home" shifts even within sentences. Maybe home is just the place furthest away from me. Home is where I'm not.

I try to see the familiar things around me with the eyes of my peers and friends from Pittsburgh. Would they see the farms and huge dark sky and think it was beautiful, or think about Deliverance and try to jump from the car? Hard to say. I can only romanticize it for so long, anyway.