I grew up on pop punk, so naturally there were two guiding lights to my formative years: pizza and the relentless desire to get the heck out of the city where I grew up the minute I could and not a second later. The day I left for college, all I could think was “thank god I never have to live in Albuquerque again.” I spent most of my time growing up with a mild disdain for the 505. I saw it as a place where dreams go to die before they even developed. And yet here I am, having escaped the Albuquerque bubble and finding myself desperately missing it.

My first week of college in Southern California, one of the questions I heard most (after “what’s your name/major/college/hometown/how do you like school so far) was “That’s the place with Breaking Bad, right?” Yes, kindly stranger making small talk, Albuquerque is the place with Breaking Bad and the balloons and yes, I promise, New Mexico is a state. The rest of the world’s perception of my hometown made it pretty easy to resent—after all, who likes to say they're from the city with all the meth and police brutality protests?

For all the flaws I saw in Albuquerque growing up, I found myself missing it surprisingly quickly. While I’d long resented it for the lack of an In-n-Out in the general vicinity, I found myself missing Frontier in the time it took me to find another place to get food with my friends at one in the morning and to sit for hours without judgment from management. Despite the fact that I now live directly next to an ocean, I still found myself tremendously disoriented by my newfound need to actually think about which direction is east. While I used to worry about looking like a hobo if I needed to go to the grocery store because without a doubt I would see at least five people I know, the second I lost that familiarity and comfort I felt a little bit lost. And if the fall air doesn't smell like green chile, is it really even fall?

So, Albuquerque, I’m sorry for all the mean things I ever said about you. I’m sorry for spending my childhood wanting to get out as soon as possible without a backward glance. I’m sorry for thinking that the sunset would always be prettier somewhere else, that I could live without green chile, and that I could ever live in a city where people didn’t think Marty Chavez is still the mayor. None of this is to say I plan on spending the rest of my life in Burque, but now I know why people go back. It’s easy to hate the place you grew up, but it’s a lot easier to understand why people love it after you’ve gained some perspective (and haven't had a good breakfast burrito in 6 months).