Dear West Virginia,

Let me start off by saying how beautiful you are. I know you have your rough times like anyone else, but in whole you can be quite beautifully appealing. I mean seriously, in the fall you are such a gorgeous specimen that it takes every last person's breath away. Many people from all over have come to you to witness the wonderful foliage that you produce. Even in the winter and summer the images you create can be astounding. And the flowers you bloom in the spring are stunning. You are truly a state to behold with its wild and wonderful imagery; don't ever let anyone tell you other wise.

I hate to break it to you, but not very many people find you to be a state of worthiness. In some people's minds you are still a part of Virginia even though you have been your own independent woman for 153 years now. Many believe that those of us who live among your hills and valleys do not have proper clothes, shoes, education, and that we all marry our cousins. (I hate to break it to those who believe that latter part, that's a practice created by aristocrats, not poor people.) Many of us have great jobs, good clothes to put on our backs, have an education, shoes on our feet, and are not married to any relative in our family.

The problem that we do have in this state is obesity, depression, a drug problem (I'm looking at you Huntington), impoverished places, and the decline of good jobs. The education is also lacking in certain areas of this state, but that is mostly connected to the regions that are impoverished and need good teachers and people to help uplift that matter. Again, the decline of good jobs is what causes this to happen and thus the messy cycle continues. I hate to see this in you, West Virginia, because I know there is potential in you. If there was the drive for not terminating great paying jobs and the want for people to go out and be a part of them, we could rise above this. And I'm not saying this isn't happening already, it just needs to grow a lot more. Obesity, depression, and addictions go around in cruel cycles with each other here and I wish we could work harder to combat them; again, not saying we aren't, but we could most certainly work harder at it. Actually, my dear beautiful friend, we could work harder at being a much better state that we want and try to be. I know, I know, you are trying and I appreciate it. Just strive much more, our people need it.

But this all being said and the praise I give you for being beautiful and working as hard as you can, I still want to leave you.

Oh, no, please don't look at me that way or begin to cry. I will always love you. You are after all my home state and my mountain momma, but I must fly the coop eventually. You do provide wondrous things for me to venture through and I thank you for the education you have been providing me. I have been thourougly blessed by that education, by the way; I have been quite fortunate. The problem is, and it is a problem a many of your residents face, there is no expansion for me here. Now hush, I know that I just said previously that you had good jobs and the potential for more, but I do not have the time to sit around here and wait for you grow at an exceedingly large rate. For the field I am in and what I want to do with my life, you unfortunately don't offer the great expansion that I need to have a successful life. Right now you just don't have the things a lot of us need to be great success that we want and are working to obtain. And for the time remaining I have here, I will do what I can to try to help you grow in the ways that I know that you can.

I don't mean to hurt your feelings by telling you this. And I know that one day you will gain all the most magnificent things you need/want to become the very best like no one ever was. I just want to tell you all this now because I don't want it to be a shock on the day that I leave for greener pastures.

But those greener pastures will never hold a candle to the beauty you have to show the world. Your scenery is something that every land wishes that it could have. You are a wild and wonderful soul that most strive to be like. And I will always come back to visit you and take in all the astounding things you have to offer. You will always be my home and my first love.

Thank you for everything, West Virginia. I truly mean it.

Love,

A true-blooded West Virginian.