Kingsport, Tennessee. If you aren't from East Tennessee, you've probably never heard of my little hometown. Kingsport isn't the smallest town in East Tennesse, but it definitely isn't the biggest either. There is something to be said about growing up in a small town, you learn lessons that just aren't teachable in a big city. I learned how to drive without being bombarded by after work traffic, I learned the importance of Sunday dinner, I learned that word travels fast so always watch my mouth when gossiping and I learned that "Bless her heart" is basically a free pass to saying anything you want about someone while still having class about it.
Being away at college has given me a new found appreciation for my hometown, a new found appreciation for the lessons I learned from growing up in a small town. Small towns get knocked a lot for being "backwards", we get knocked for maybe being a little bit more country than bigger cities, but I can promise you that there is beauty in a small town that is just not able to be found in a big city.
I find beauty in the fact that my small hometown taught me exactly what family is. I have grown up with the same people, went all the way through school with the exact same group of people. I have friends that have stayed by my side from the first day of kindergarten. We had two middle schools that all of the elementary schools filtered into and then in ninth grade, both middle schools filtered into one gigantic high school. So, basically I have been with the same people since I was five years old. We started together and we ended together and sometimes we hated each other, but when we walked across that stage at graduation I think we all realized that there were no other people we would have wanted to go on that journey with.
My small town taught me that family doesn't always have to be blood. My group of girl friends and I have been by each others' sides through all of the trials and tribulations of middle school and high school. And the thing about a small town is that no matter what you do, no matter how big, how small, how great or how shameful it may be, everyone finds out about it one way or another. Growing up in a small town, you realize who is really going to be there through the good and the bad, and you realize that those people are your family. If you ask me, there's nothing more beautiful than that.
Everyone knows everyone, which is kind of annoying sometimes but overall it's actually pretty cool. When I came to college I found out how unusual it is for people's parents to have went all the way through school together, I found out that maybe my normal isn't everyone else's normal. My mom and dad pretty much went to school with almost every one of my friends parents. My papaw taught at the high school in our town before he retired, and most people know me, my sisters and my cousins as "Coach England's granddaughters." In a small town there is something neat in having such a personal relation to people that you barely know, everyone has a story that relates to one of your family members in some way, and no matter where you go there is always someone you somehow now that has your back and is looking out for you. Everyone is family in one way or another.
One of the most important lessons my hometown taught me is to always watch the way I am behaving. I think that when you are from a bigger city or bigger high school you don't exactly realize how fast word travels, but when you are from a high school where everyone knows everyone then you really understand how fast words can get around. My parents always told me that if I don't want something repeated, I shouldn't even say it out loud and goodness were they right. Telling one secret to one person who in turn tells it to just one more person leads to a very messy situation. There were times in my life when I would mess up and within five minutes I would have a text from my parents or sister telling me that they knew what I did. Those were the times when the whole small town thing wasn't that great. But that did teach me that no matter what I do, if I can't do it in front of my family then I probably shouldn't be doing it.
By the end of my senior year, I couldn't wait to get away from my small town. I wanted to see Kingsport in my rear-view and never have to look back, but the older I get and the more life experiences I go through in college, the more thankful I become for my small town. There is beauty in knowing everyone at the grocery store, there is something special about having friends that you know will always be there because they've seen you at your very worst, there is beauty in knowing that no matter where you go, someone is looking out for you.
There is something to be said about a small town.
