Overwhelming

I love Erie. And since May, I haven't lived here permanently, for the first time since I was 11 years old. And coming home is relaxing and awesome, and at the same time it's overwhelming. The people I know and love here in Erie are spread out, have jobs, and are from all different aspects of my life here. I was able to juggle this incredibly vast and varying group of people while I lived here because, well, I lived here. I could do what I wanted with the time I had in Erie, which was a lot of time. When I come home and visit for just a week, that's different. There are so many people to see and so little time to see them. Here's my list:

1. Family. They come first, obviously. If mother says to come home for dinner, then I will be doing just that. And the puppy is too cute to spend too much time away from. I also will be spending thanksgiving day in Ohio seeing the extended family. So much fun.
2. High school friends. And not just the friends that I went to high school with, I'm talking here mostly about the friends that I had and have kept in touch with since high school. There are the Fairview-ites of course, but there's also the few McDowell and Collegiate grads that I know and love. As well as the former dancing buddies. My one dancing buddy got a new puppy, so I am probably going to use that as excuse to pay her a visit :-). But I probably won't see the rest of the dancing crew. As for the high school crew, most of them aren't coming home for Thanksgiving, since they have jobs in places like Arizona, South/North Carolina, and Georgia. Sheesh.
3. Behrend graduates. Lots of them ended up getting jobs in Erie and are still here, living real adult lives (most of them are married now too...which is scary). I love and miss them.
4. Mercyhurst graduates. Most of them are married to the Behrend graduates that are still in town. And I love and miss them just the same.
5. Ex-Roommates. Both Diana and Theresa still live in Erie, and are working real adult jobs that require a college degree. Did I mention I feel old? I guess they also fall into the category of "Behrend graduates," but they're a little closer since I spent 3 years living with Diana and 1 year living with Theresa. You get to know people really well when you live together :-)
6. GE people. Having spent 2 summers and a spring semester working at GE, I accumulated a few friends that haven't left Erie because, well, they already had real jobs when I met them. A few of the interns I worked with came back for full-time jobs after they graduated as well. We ate lunch at the breakfast place allll the time. I kind of want to repeat that.
7. I also met someone who's a mechanical engineering grad student at Penn State who's from Erie and wants to work on homework this week sometime. Because we have the same homework, and conveniently live in the same town.

Spending so much time in Erie has blessed me with knowing so many people here. But I am caught with the dilemma of not knowing who to call, or if I should even bother seeing some of these people if it can only be for an hour or so. They also tend to have jobs, so seeing any of them before 5pm on a weekday is a low probability. Thus the overwhelming feeling that is getting to me right now.

If you fall into one of these categories and I haven't spoken to you yet, you should call me :-)