When I first started writing for Odyssey, they told me that some of the most popular articles written were letters written to author’s hometowns.

Naturally, I vowed to never write one of those articles because I am an egotistical, pretentious asshole.

But yet, I’ve only been on the team for two weeks and here I am.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about home. Just the other night I was on the phone with my mom for almost three hours, and even after it was going into one in the morning, we were still chatting away. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, and we talk fairly regularly, but we hadn’t ever talked for that long or for that late on the phone. I ended up having to tell her to go to sleep because she had to get up at six that morning.

This was after I was on Skype with my friend Alyssa earlier that night, and before I texted my friend George to tell him I missed him.

Because while yes, I’m having the time of my life in school, I can’t help but think about home. For those of you who don’t know, I’m from a tiny town in upstate New York called Ballston Spa. It’s about twenty minutes away from the more notable Saratoga Springs, which is known for its springs, its horses, and for being the location of the turning point in the American Revolution. Ballston Spa is known for owning the National Bottle Museum.

When introducing yourself to people for the first time, it’s very easy to let your identity as a “Saratogian” overtake you, and I can’t help but feel slightly traitorous for that.

When you’re young, all you want to do is get away. You want to leave your hometown and go to new, more exciting places. You want to travel, or meet new people, or run away to an art school in Brooklyn. You think that the worst thing that could happen is that you get stuck in your hometown.

Now, since I’m older and clearly wiser after 18 years, I can say that I miss home. I think it would be a wonderful place to live, and I’m almost a little upset that my career won’t let me live there (or any other small town, for that matter) at least not for a long while.

I miss Pizza Works, where friends and I would go to relax after an AP test or before we went to go see a movie. Where you go to eat for good food after everywhere else is closed.

I miss The Whistling Kettle. Not because I love tea, I never really could bring myself to like the stuff. Not because of the lunch dates I had with friends, and because of the first date I had there with a boy that became very, very important to me, even if neither of us knew that it was a date at the time.

I miss the park off East High street, the one with just a few swings and a whole lot of field space. In my earlier and more vulnerable years, I spent a lot of time sitting in the field and picking flowers while my team lost our soccer game around me. Yeah, I was one of those kids.

But most of all, I miss the people. I miss the High School, strangely enough, because of the way it enabled me to see those people I care most about every day. The people I grew up with, who saw me at my lowest (I’m talking about middle school here, folks). I got to see teachers that helped me to mature and grow in an environment where I wasn’t afraid to fail. Teachers who I still talk to now, who I look up to. I miss my family.

I just want to thank everyone from home who’s helped me grow. I would be a much different person if I was raised anywhere else, and for the first time in my life, I’m actually starting to become comfortable with who I am. I owe all of you for that.

And no, not every day was sunshine and rainbows in Ballston Spa, there’s a reason I wanted to leave. But the simple thing is- there were so many good memories that even the bad ones are muted.

I can’t wait to come home this summer, guys.