For me, and many other people, the Super Bowl is never about football. It’s never about the… For me, and many other people, the Super Bowl is never about football. It’s never about the love of the game or even the love of a good coach, player or play. It’s about spending time with friends and family – or both – appreciating the one day when chemical engineers, punk rockers, leaders of nonprofit organizations and anyone in between can sit down, pig out and actually agree to watch the same channel together.

Unfortunately, this February will be the very first Super Bowl Sunday that I don’t spend with a gigantic gathering of families that have known me practically since birth. For me, the day means a forty-minute drive with my mom, dad and a sister to the home of family friends. It means too many people in front of one television, brightly-colored mesh jerseys and paper plates everywhere. For my typically reserved family, it actually means yelling. Really, the Super Bowl is not to be underestimated.

I am in no way kidding when I say that fact makes me realize just how long the 250 miles from Pittsburgh to my hometown can stretch. Super Bowl Sunday, seriously, is the first day outside of the Arrival Survival week “grace period” that I might be