It’s really the simple things that make me miss my hometown…

I went from living at home smelling an odd mixture of six other people, mixed with the smell of fresh laundry and good ole’ home-cooking to the rank of community bathrooms, piled up laundry and rotten leftovers…

I went from hearing every day sounds such as my little brothers running around at random times of the night/early morning, my sister blaring her music(always having to out-sing the singer) patiently waiting to hear momma yell “Suppertime” at approximately 6 pm every night, and of course “Eye of the Tiger” every Friday at school…because when it’s game day, it’s Game Day...

To hearing the bell tower every-single- hour(interrupting my daily naps), lying wide awake at 5:30 am(because the garbage man thinks that’s a good time to take the trash), and experiencing a very traumatizing first fire drill at 5 am…

Really though it makes it all worth it to cheer on the TOPS on Saturday afternoon, chanting the fight song with your entire school reminiscing of the days we chanted “Go Big Blue” and “Rocky Top” in high school..

I have always dreamed of leaving my hometown to move on to a big city and chase my dreams. Yes, I am aware big cities don’t offer much for a future Elementary teacher, but what they do offer are experiences to last a lifetime…wonder and new beginnings.

Living in a small town, everyone’s sort of doing what everyone else is doing, right? Go to school, meet up with your buddies at the local Mexican restaurants, Friday night football games are a necessity(because honestly there’s nothing else to do), late night Sonic runs, run into everybody and their momma at Walmart and you stand there having a twenty minute conversation with them because local gossip is actually..very..interesting.

After graduating, you’re supposed to go your own way, spread those wings and FLY...well there’s not much spreading-going where everyone else is going. Not saying going to a tuition-free school with 75% of my graduating class wouldn’t have definitely had its perks.. I just feel like that wouldn’t have been flying for me. That wouldn’t have been MY new beginning.

Being someone who always thinks of the future before even considering the present, I always liked to think of my “new beginning”… I always liked to think of spreading my wings to fly. My plan has always been to move on to a university where I would no longer run into the same people at the same places and be able to talk for twenty minutes about the local gossip. Walking on campus with 18,000 people each day has got to sound exciting to someone who graduated with a class of only 214 students, right?

Well, it depends on how you look at it really.. I have this one group of friends who I do everything with and may I say the laughter and gossip is endless.. I eat at the same few places every day and after realizing our schedules don’t change, I started noticing I cross paths with the same people every single day. Not much different than my hometown, I guess you could say… but over my first semester, I have realized I am thankful for that. I have been able to bring my hometown heart with me to an enormous community and find the little things to make me feel right at home.

Having a hometown heart in a big city school makes me constantly compare.. my school and community is absolutely amazing, not a day goes by without being thankful I am privileged enough to attend my university… yet at the same time, not a day goes by I don’t thank God for the small town I was raised in.

You see, the two really go together...and I wouldn’t be who I am without them both. I am a small town, homegrown girl who has “gone with the crowd” for years. I’ve eaten my fair share of Mexican food, cheered my heart out at (still not enough) football games, and I am still guilty of standing around Walmart gossiping. I am a small town girl who decided to fly...I dream of one day making it to New York and the ultimate goal being Paris to experience two beautiful cities in wonder and awe. I decided to start small, yet big, in many ways. Because my “city” school is taking me places...and my new beginnings are still calling.