Growing up in a teeny Connecticut town where the only real excitement is the annual fair in September, you learn to make your own fun.

When I was younger, my friends and I did the most ridiculous things to stay occupied. We would get lost in the woods during the winter, go on "ghost hunting" adventures in graveyards, and even spend hours running the neighborhood, chasing after the big, scary highschoolers who never failed to smash our freshly-carved Jack-O-Lanterns on Cabbage Night each year.

Even now, years later, my friends and I still know how to entertain ourselves. Summers are filled with lake days, bonfires, blueberry picking, backyard tanning, and the occasional exploration of abandoned places (legally, of course). We hold our own "Chopped" competitions, and get way too into having mini photo shoots at every aesthetically pleasing place we come across.

As much fun as I have, I've always said I didn't like Connecticut. In books, movies, and on every social media platform, places like Los Angeles, London, and even Boston seemed bubbling with so much more life than my tiny town.

However, as I got older and actually got to travel into cities and finally go away to college, my perspective on my hometown took a complete 180.

Being away from home has truly made me thankful for the place I grew up in and the people I've grown up with. Even though our small town doesn't have much to offer, I have the privilege of having trees to climb and a place for gardens to grow. I get to fall asleep to the sound of spring peepers and crickets and wake up to chirping birds — no honking cars or busy-bodies trying to get to class.

Sure, we have to rake our own leaves, shovel our own driveways, and mow our own lawns, but it's absolutely worth it.

People chuckle when I tell them we have yearly tractor parades, and that if you're outside, you almost always can smell manure if you try hard enough, but I laugh along with them. My home might be lame, but without it, I might have never been able to have a campfire in my backyard or lie out on my deck and look for shooting stars whenever the sky is clear.

Connecticut will forever have a piece of my heart, no matter where life takes me.