Born and raised in Evansville, IN, my childhood included an abundance of cornfields, windy roads, and 4H fairs. From elementary school to high school, I went to the school with the same group of kids. Just as my parents had, I attended Highland Elementary, Thompkins Middle School, and then Central High School. My parents’ teachers became my teachers.

It was more than likely that I would see at least one teacher each weekend at church, or Los Bravos, or the Target in North Park. The lines between school, work, and home life were always blurred. But this was never anything I ever questioned.

I have never been on a plane. I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, or the inhabitants of Yellowstone Park. Until two years ago, I had never seen roads with four lanes. Frankly, my knowledge of the world did not span beyond the boarders of Indiana. And never did I think this to be strange, or uncommon. Not until I went to college in the fall of 2016.

You know, it’s a really strange feeling when you realize that your home no longer feels like home, when your safe place no longer exists among the pale pink confines of your bedroom, or the ease of two-lane roads.

The first glimmer of this change appeared as I was sitting in my First Year Seminar course: Women Writing the World. The coolness of October eased through the third-floor windows of Jordan Hall as my professor told us to ask ourselves if we would call ourselves feminist.

For the first time, I realized that I had options. Feminist was never an aspect of my vocabulary, let alone a self-descriptor. In my eighteen years of living in Evansville, I don’t think I had ever heard the word feminist used, at least not in a good way. But in this moment, I knew for certain that I was not a hairy man-hater or anti-family, but I was without a doubt a feminist.

It wasn’t until the summer between my first and second year at Butler that I understood just how disconnected I felt. For the first time in nearly a year I was spending an extended period of time away from Indianapolis, away from school, away from the safety of a liberal arts education.

I was hanging out with several old high school friends, the friends that I had grown up with. Somehow our conversation veered from trivial issues to the discussion of how we are all doing in school, our majors, our plans for the future. As I was excitingly telling them of how excited I was in my recent change in major from Healthcare and Business to Peace and Conflict Studies, nothing but blank faces looked back at me.

“What does that even mean?”

“What do you plan to do with that?”

“Are you a feminist now?”

“That liberal school really changed you.”

It became overwhelmingly clear that the change that I thought all college students went through did not happen for all of my friends. The squeeze of Carly’s hand was the only reassurance that I wasn’t completely alone in that moment. All I could think was that the current me never would have been friends with this group of people. How the hell did I make through so many years of schooling with such narrow-minded people?

I got along with those people because I was one of them.

Each time I return to Evansville it becomes a little more difficult. No longer do I find myself feeling freed by the open roads but suffocated. With each visit I become more aware of the change I that I am going through. Honestly, I’m not sure that I have truly changed. I think being in Indianapolis, at Butler, with people that are so different from me granted me an opportunity that Evansville just never could – to make my own decisions.

I do not think less of any of the people that I have grown up with. They are not bad or unkind people. I do not by any means believe I am a better person than any of them. But I am so incredibly thankful that I looked beyond the security of my hometown.

Diversity is not just about being around people of different races or ethnicities. It is about the inclusion of those that experience life differently than you in any fashion whether that be due to socioeconomic status, religious belief, gender, sexuality, and so on. Diversity should not exist merely for the sake of diversity, but because it reminds us of the humanity in all people.

The more we are around those that are different from us the more difficult it becomes to ignore their stories, their struggles. No longer are gay rights an arbitrary thought, but the rights of a classmate, a coworker, a professor, a friend.

I may feel that I have grown out of Evansville, Indiana, but in no way can I ignore where and how I was raised. So, to those that know themselves to be liberals, radicals, feminists, or social advocates, I challenge you to expand the diversity of your friend group. That narrow-minded person from a small town could have been me.