One gas station. One stoplight. One restaurant. One grocery store.

My hometown’s motto is “Where We Never Meet A Stranger,” which is a pretty suitable description of Lexington, AL. Considering that the population is roughly 730 people, you are truly bound to never meet a stranger. When you grow up in a small town like Lexington, everyone knows everyone. Literally. Everyone. Knows. Everyone. Still, to this day I could tell you every single student in the graduating class of 2014’s first and last name, what their parents did for a living, and where their grandparents lived and how many acres they lived on. I hated it. Oh, I hated it so much. If you got in trouble at school, your parents knew about it before you even did.

As much as I absolutely hated growing up in a small town, I appreciate it now that I have moved away. It took leaving everyone I had ever known and moving four hours away to a college where I knew nobody before I realized just how grateful I was to have been raised in a small town.

Here are a few life lessons I’ve learned from growing up in a small town:

1. Do not be so quick to judge.

Rumors spread fast in small towns, so don’t believe everything you hear.

2. Appreciate the small things in life.

Live simply and learn to entertain yourself because chances are the closest movie theater, mall, or chain restaurants are at least 30 miles away.

3. You learn the value of a family.

When you live in a small town, the whole community looks out for you and everyone else who considers the small town "home" because we truly are one big family.

4. You always have a place to call home.

No matter how far you've wandered away, small towns will always gladly welcome you back home.

5. Most importantly, the friendships you make in your hometown are the friendships you'll have for a lifetime.

In college, I quickly realized that not everyone had the experience of making lifelong friendships in high school like I did. While most people meet their true friends through college or work, I’ve known who my bridesmaids were going to be since the 4^th grade. Although we have all gone separate ways by taking different career paths, attending different colleges, and making new friends, the memories we made over the past 12 years are incapable of being replaced. I owe every one of those precious friendships to being raised in a small town.

I still wholeheartedly believe that there are much, much greater things in this world than Lexington, AL but I also believe that there are few greater things that can compare to the life lessons, experiences, and friendships that I made while growing up in a small town.