Where it All Started

I'm going to be in Pittsburgh this weekend from Friday to Sunday (very brief... too brief) and I'm really insanely excited about it. The city is a symbol of so much to me. It's my first weekend stay since I moved in 2005 for law school.

Before I moved to Pittsburgh, I was floundering. I was gay and out (very unusual in my tiny hometown--which meant very few gay friends, which contributed to a feeling of isolation); working at a job that I was pretty good at, but where I was probably in over my head; not in school; living with my mom in her one bedroom apartment. Going nowhere.

I met a guy at a Memorial Day picnic in Pittsburgh when I was 21, and within six weeks, I had quit my job at home, got a job at an Applebee's in Pittsburgh, packed up my life in Clarion, and moved. Everything that I possessed fit in my car. One trip. I didn't have a bed for weeks. But I started to be proactive and stop taking things as they came. I learned to accept the young adult angst. And I started to build my life.

It was tough learning who I was. It still is, and I'm nowhere near finished. But Pittsburgh is where I learned how to learn.

Heading back now, after four years (save for a brief stopover last December) is really an unusual feeling. I don't know what it will feel like to walk Pitt's campus, and to see the skyline in the evening. It will be oddly emotional. Actually, I'm not sure if it would be more odd to be emotional or to not be emotional. But one thing's for sure: I wouldn't be who I was without Pittsburgh... and I can't wait to be back where this crazy journey started.