Every graduating high school senior moves away from home with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. We see our future in sight as we head to college, a new home away from home, even though we really have no idea what our future holds and it tends to change about a million times before we even finish up our freshman year of college. Heading to college is like reinventing yourself, there is so much freedom that comes along with living without your parents and leaving the town you always say you hated growing up. We all just want to get out of our no name town, which is barely recognizable on a map. But then one day, you find yourself back in that no name town and it feels more like home than ever before.
I'm guilty of bashing my hometown, and it really is basically unrecognizable from a map... you really only know of it if you live within 20 minutes of it. And growing up, I wanted nothing more than to get out and never come back. I'm not the kind of kid who went off to college that came home every weekend to visit. I never actually went home to visit more than once a month and I only went to school 30 minutes away. But one night, a really bad night, I decided to take a drive to just listen to music and clear my head. I was driving aimlessly, no destination in mind, but suddenly there it was: the street I grew up on, the roads I drove every damn morning to get to high school, my old dance studio, and my high school...I was back at home.
I never realized how much comfort my hometown gave me, because even though I "hated" it and could not wait to leave, it was still my home. It will always be my home, even if I move to another city. I do not think I can find the comfort and safety that I feel any where else. The familiarity of the twists and turns, the roads with the beautiful houses or lakes, or the ones where the cops always hide out. Nothing feels more like home than knowing this place is what helped create who I am today and impact who I will be every day of my life.
Even though we think that we are better than our hometown and the people in it, that place is what made us. And one day, you'll wake up and realize how much it really means to you. You'll realize that even though you practically ran away from that no name town, you'll always find yourself running back when you need to feel the safety of familiarity and the comfort of having somewhere to run to. This place made you. It could have destroyed you, but instead it put you right where you belong and when you forget where you belong you'll always find yourself running away back home.
