I'm gonna miss this...

I drove over to Pittsburgh this weekend with my friend Amanda who grew up there. Danny couldn’t come because he’s stressing about his test that’s only a month away now. It was a long drive, but very pretty. By the end of the trip I just wanted to hide in a hole so I didn’t have to meet any new people. I don’t think I could ever do PR. I’ve learned I have a limit to how many new people I can meet in a 36-hour period. I stayed with a Bryan's friends that are in dental school out there. I had never met them before, and they didn’t even really remember Danny, so I was grateful that they invited me into their home. Not only did they kick their 6 and 3 yr old children out of their room so I could sleep there, but they did it on a weekend that her sister’s family came in town from Detroit. To top it all off, they spent a couple hours driving me around the city to show me around and to find houses while their relatives sat at their house. I am so grateful for their sacrifice to someone they had never even met. It’s amazing how the church can bind complete strangers so easily.

Before I went out I spent hours finding houses on Craigslist, comparing neighborhoods and scoping out the city on Google street view. I contacted landlords and made appointments to go see 12 houses on Saturday. The problem was that on street view I couldn’t tell that all the neighborhoods I was looking at were on hills and some of the streets were at 45 degree angles or worse. Not exactly where I want to live. So I spent all day going to appointments in areas I would never be happy living in. By the end of the day I was so discouraged. I was regretting my decision to move and just wanted to stay in Philly (Can you believe those words would ever come out of my mouth?), but it is too late, all Danny’s rotations are set in Pittsburgh now and we can’t change them. It’s not that those neighborhoods were ghetto by Philly standards; they are still a lot nicer than a lot of neighborhoods here. It was a different kind of ghetto though. I think there are about 5 black people in the whole city. It was a white trash, red neck ghetto, complete with the female mullet and men walking around without their shirts. As I felt totally defeated and started driving back to the suburb where CJ and Megan lived I noticed that the streets were looking nicer and nicer, and the houses were more spread out and better taken care of. I fell in love with the idea of Pittsburgh again. I told CJ and Megan my sob story and that’s when they drove me around their neighborhood and showed me what there is to love about the city. I found several houses that I’m interested in. Now the hard part is going to be making the decision. It’s hard because Danny wasn’t there and doesn’t understand what I saw. We can’t bounce pros and cons of houses off each other like we did when we moved here.

I spent Sunday morning doing some more driving around to find all the nice areas of the city and then I went to their sacrament meeting. I am sad to report there was not one black person in their ward. Am I a bad person to say that sacrament meeting felt 4 times longer there than it does in Philadelphia? I am really going to miss all the new converts in our ward. The people who are hearing the gospel for the first time and have so many interesting comments to add, prayers to say, and testimonies to give. I’m going to miss that my 2nd counselor is a gospel rapper. I’m going to miss that we hear the sacrament prayer multiple times each Sunday because the guys blessing it are new converts and the prayer is still new for them. I’m going to miss the man that wears a sweatband to pass the sacrament and invites people to his community college fashion show for his testimony. I’m going to miss the character and sass, and raw love for the gospel these people have. There has never been a dull moment here.

As I came back home I was surprised to realize how beautiful some parts of Philadelphia are. In comparison to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia is stunning. I’m sad it took me this long to realize it. At least I still have a month left to enjoy it to it’s fullest. Don’t get me wrong, the bad neighborhoods here are SO much worse than the bad neighborhoods there. But the nice neighborhoods here are SO much prettier than the nice neighborhoods there. I feel like there was a lot more care that went into the building of this city; so even though it’s been run down more, you can still see the beauty underneath. Pittsburgh hasn’t been run down as much, it just wasn’t that pretty to begin with. I don’t know if that made any sense, or maybe it was too repetitive, I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. I’m excited to move to Pittsburgh, but I also have a new love and appreciation for Philadelphia and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I heard a song on my Pandora player today and it put me in tears. The song “You’re Gonna Miss This” by Trace Adkins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG9XfJxMY8A.

It’s so fitting. That’s what I’ve done my whole life. I keep waiting for the next thing. I try to get through this point in my life so I can get to the next point that is going to be so much better. I forget to stop and enjoy what I have now. That’s the moral for my letter. No matter what point you’re at in your life, if you find yourself longing for something more, snap out of it! Stop, and enjoy the life that God has set before you. He created a good one, and you’re gonna to miss this.



Love,

Maretta