Our hometown is often a place where we grew up and went through school. After you graduate, college is an option and usually college is in a different town than your hometown. Moving away is both scary and exhilarating. Even though there is unlimited freedom and it is like having a sleepover with your best friends for nine months straight, believe it or not, you do get homesick.
I want to thank my hometown because out of everything that shaped me, it had the most impact on my life. Thank you for my family, my best friends, the good and bad times and even the heartbreak of me and my high school boyfriend going our separate ways when college came. Thank you for the awkward junior high days, my first kiss and all the people that touched my life along the way. Thank you for always being home, especially when I got back from long vacations.
I often take for granted this place I have called "home" my entire life. Being in college has definitely changed my opinion on my hometown though. I look forward to coming home, eating at places that are only here, seeing my high school friends and just being able to enjoy this town like I never have been able to before. Your college town is a completely different world that takes awhile to get used to and even though you live there, it's never really your home. Even if you don't move back to your hometown after college is over, you'll realize that no place will ever be home quite like it was. No other place will have the memories or people that shaped who you are today.
Coming back to see your ever-changing hometown is hard sometimes. Part of me wishes it would stay the same so I have something so familiar to come home to, but I know with everything, there is a time for change. There are bits and pieces that will remain the same and always be in my heart. I think that is why it is so comforting to be home, especially after a long year in college. You are reminded of who you are and why you are who you are when you come home. It is easy to get caught up in the college life but when you come back and drive down the street you and your lifetime best friend met on, you are reminded of your roots.
So thank you, hometown, because no matter what new shops, food places or neighborhoods are built, you will always be the place that built me.
