No One Said Growing Up In Sussex County, New Jersey Was Easy

There are a lot of people who are obsessed with my hometown, and identify that in their life. A little bit of me doesn't blame them, where I am from has amazing views, privacy in nature, and a relatively close-knit community. I see online my former classmates get excited to return home from college or even move back after college because of how much our town has had a big part of their life that they don't want to leave behind all the memories. However, I, cannot seem to identify with my hometown the same way, as I look forward to the ventures ahead, instead of reminiscing on the past.

It's not that I hate my hometown, but I just don't have that same attachment of homesick I used to when I first started college. First off, I am one of those unique children of moving a lot, so each year was a new town, that I didn't even settle in Sussex until I was almost 10. So, I've seen what else the world has to offer, as Sussex does have its positive qualities, I'm more interested in meeting new people, and not being completely out of the way for everything. That is the only way I was able to describe Sussex County, a complete drive out of the way. Going to the grocery store alone takes from my house a solid 10 minutes, the mall and movies about 45-50 minutes away, so it's such a hassle to do all that driving for every single errand. Even going to visit your friends was sometimes inconvenient because some of my friends lived halfway across town taking almost 20 minutes each way there and back.

Also, another point to make about why living in a town like Sussex is never easy is that nobody knows where it is. Most of my conversations that lead to the question of "where are you from?" and I still can't even describe the place I'm from after almost 15 years. Even after explaining it, people still don't know where we are. The worst is when they ask "well, what stuff is around there?" It's easier for other New Jerseyans who are pretty much around somewhere or close to other towns they can reference to for distance, but for Sussex it doesn't work that way. We don't drive on many highways, mostly just back roads that are badly paved, or full of gravel and potholes. We don't find it necessary to lock our doors, or don't need things such as parallel parking or worrying about j-walking, we don't even have our own police station. When people ask about Sussex County in terms of where and what it is I'll say things like:

"Off Route 15"

"About 45 min from Rockaway Mall"

"Mountain Creek"

"Space Farms"

"Where the 'Sussex County Fair is'"

"The northest part of New Jersey, where all the deer and bears live."

Anddddddddd it will still be no.

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So I've essentially just given up.

But to me, personally what I never found easy about living in Sussex County was the lack of privacy you're able to have in your own life. I know this could also be the case for a lot of towns, but because of the lack of things to do in Sussex County, we rely on the people. So everyone knows everyone, there are no secrets, so every rumor or fact about families, teachers, sports, schools, students, friends or any town event was heard about. There were even some cases that my own mother knew about something happening at school before I did. While the closeness of the town had it's perk, it was really hard in some cases to have a whole town know your business. Even a new kid coming to school was a huge deal because of how small our school was. There's a lot space between houses but the words remained close between each other, which makes it seem the town is more interested in the lives of others instead of their own.

I know it seems there is a lot of hate in this article, but please know I do appreciate the town I've lived in, but there are some negative aspects of it that I can't ignore. No town you grow up in is easy, but it's also okay to not feel attached or identify to the hometown you've grown up in as I learned. It's also okay to hate it, or not find a lot of positive things about it.

The way I see it is that there's nothing wrong with leaving something behind, taking what you've learned and applying it to the future to a new place you can call home.