My hometown has many wonderful parts of it. Many people adore it and are very happy to be there. For some, it's a beautiful haven of acceptance and love, where they share beliefs with the majority and have a wonderful community. Some people miss it when they leave.

I, however, am not one of those people.

When I visited my hometown during break, I had plenty of positive experiences. It was great to see my close friends again, and I loved being with my family. But, as my break comes to a close, I'm excited beyond belief to go back to my college town and escape this place where I spent 18 years. I can't wait to leave a place I don't love and go back to a place I do.

How, you ask? Many people have nothing but nostalgia for their hometowns and love going back. But I have some experiences in my hometown that I can definitely afford to leave behind.

For one, my hometown is a very religious place, and, by extension, a very conservative one. We have one religion largely dominating the population, and even if people aren't part of that one religion, they generally are religious. I, however, am not particularly religious. I'm more agnostic than anything else. I don't go to church on Sundays, I don't pray, and I don't devote any part of my life to worship.

Now, as one can imagine, this creates a sense of alienation. Many people made friends through church, youth group, or camps, and I didn't have that. I wasn't a part of the community that the majority of my town was a part of. "Friends" tried to convert me to their religion and stopped interacting with me when they realized I wouldn't change my ways. People acted sanctimonious when I didn't act exactly the way that they wanted me to.

Coming back, I was reminded of this fairly powerfully. I judged at a debate tournament where it became clear that people didn't know about some basic sex ed because the religious climate didn't allow it. Nothing is open on Sundays because Sundays, for everyone, are supposed to be a day of religion. And I got to return to perhaps the biggest problem I had with the religious climate...their opinions on women and, perhaps most prominent when I came back, their opinions on the LGBTQIA+ community.

In my college town, every single one of my friends is LGBT+ or a vocal ally, so it's easy to wear my identity on my sleeve. I can talk about being ace or falling in love with a woman, and no one will bat an eye.

Coming out to my floor as ace went very smoothly, and all of my friends are aware that I'm not straight. I'm fully out of the closet in my college town. However, coming back to my hometown reignited some of my survival instincts to make sure that no one ever thought I could potentially be anything other than straight.

For example, before spending time in my college town, I instinctively shied away from any physical contact with a woman. Back home, doing things like holding a woman's hand or platonically cuddling with a female friend branded you as gay. In fact, sometimes even casual physical contact could raise some questions.

I didn't notice how prominently that survival instinct was ingrained in me until I went shopping with a friend of mine, who has been misgendered as female on a couple of occasions. He leaned against me and rested his head on my shoulder, something that he does regularly, but without even realizing, I flinched away. He tried again, and I flinched away again.

It was totally unprecedented, he'd done that on many occasions, but never in a store before. He wasn't even a woman, and yet, the instinct deeply ingrained in me from years in my hometown led me to constantly avoid being close to anyone who might potentially be considered a woman. I was so used to being in the closet, looking fearfully out and hoping no one realized my identity, that I constantly hid from anything that might label me as LGBT+.

And when I came back to my hometown, I was back in that climate.

I realized, when I came back home, that I was essentially back in the closet. A small group of close friends and my parents know that I'm not straight, but it certainly isn't knowledge that I'd want to be spread out.

For example, in my college town, during orientation, when asked if people would be okay living with someone whose sexual orientation was different than their own, the answer from my group was a unanimous yes. In my hometown? I'd be lucky if half of a randomly selected population said they would. If a random person in my college town knew I was not straight, it wasn't a huge deal. But if a random person back home knew? I could be ostracized at best.

So I made sure not to mention anything that could hint at my sexuality except in private, with people who I knew were also closeted LGBT+ people. And the instinctive fear returned; for example, when helping with a debate tournament, someone told me that the banner I was hanging "wasn't straight," and I almost made a joke before stopping in utter horror that I had almost outed myself to someone completely random.

That anxiety isn't a feature of life in my college town, and to be honest, I'm done with it. I'm tired of worrying that people will know who I really am.

So, as I write this, I look forward to leaving tomorrow. I eagerly look to my return to my college town, where I can be who I am and where I cannot be ostracized for what I believe. I can finally be me, the full, authentic, Rachel Cebull, without any worry, without any trepidation. And that is absolutely beautiful.

If you don't love your hometown, trust me: you're not alone. I don't love it either. Yes, I have great memories there. But life is about moving on and finding where you belong. I didn't grow up in the perfect place for me, so it's time for me to find it. And find it, I will.