Ah, small towns. Where everyone knows everyone and you can drive the total radius of the town in 5 to 10 minutes, with an extended stop to make sure the elderly lady who owns the local floral shop gets across the street safely, cane and all. Where the highlight of everyone's week is the high school football game Friday night, even though the home team will most likely lose, and a stop at the local cafe when it's over. Where everyone knows your momma, and your daddy, and their parents went to school with yours and now both sets of kids attend the only high school in town. In the biggest thing about small towns is, everyone knows your business before you even know about it.
Leaving a small town opens you to a million new opportunities and connections to be made that you once had never even heard of or thought was possible. You'll find a new best friend that is completely different than the types of people from back home, but that friend will open your mind to even more new ideas.
Leaving a small town also makes you realize that not everyone is as friendly as the people back home. You become just another nameless face in the streets, but that isn't always a bad thing.
Leaving the small town you were raised in makes you realize that you grew up in a bubble, where everyone shares basically the same beliefs, leaving little room for new ideas and perspectives.
When you leave a small town, you realize how hard it is to make new friends because you never really had the chance to considering you went through your entire schooling with the same people you were born and raised with.
When you leave a small town. you finally get the opportunity to get out of your comfort zone which is a blessing in disguise. You get exposed to new foods, new clubs, new types of people, and new areas and cultures. Diversity truly is a beautiful thing if you open yourself up to it.
When you leave the small town you grew up in, you learn a plethora of new things about yourself. From finding out that you love acai bowls, or salsa dancing, or attending rally's with friends, which a thing that was most likely strongly discouraged in your tiny hometown.
When you leave a small town, you begin to enjoy visiting every now and again and love the peace and quiet, but miss being 5 minutes away from a target and your best friend living down the street rather than your closest neighbor being a herd of cows.
When you leave a small town, you truly realize that the place we all love to hate on, with the close minded people, and all your diaper buddies, truly is where your heart lies in the end, it's home. But you also realized what the world truly had to offer you, and can now bring those new ideas home.
Dear small old town, I truly miss you, and am grateful that I was raised in the bubble I was, but am also grateful for the numerous opportunities that were opened to me when I left you. With this being said, my heart belongs in you, and I cannot wait to be full again in you soon.
