Small town, North Carolina.
Population: 28,776.

I was born and raised in a small town. Everyone knew pretty much everyone, and you went to school with the same people from kindergarten to senior year. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in a small town, but we made do. Friday night football was king and you best believe majority of the town was in those stadium seats dressed in blue and gold waiting to cheer our boys to victory.

It’s all I’ve ever known. Well, at least until I turned 18 and headed 45 miles down the road for college. That’s when I learned what it meant to be from a small town.

In the last two years I’ve learned a lot of things about what it means to come from my hometown. Mostly that saying “I’m from just outside of Raleigh” is a standard seeing as how very few people actually know where I’m from.

But I’ve learned more than that. The most important thing I’ve learned from being from a small town, is how to love those around you no matter what.

As I said before, I grew up with the exact same people from age three to eighteen. Heck, my best friend’s mom has videos of us at age four or five dancing together looking like idiots. That’s just how it works. The one thing they don’t tell you though, is that sometimes you can know everyone around you without really knowing them at all.

If you were to hand me my senior year yearbook, I could probably go through majority of my graduating class and tell you at least a small detail about each of them. But there’s only a couple handfuls that I could tell you a slew of information about. Don’t get me wrong, I knew a lot of people in high school and a lot of people knew me. That doesn’t mean that we KNEW each other.

When I went to college I wanted that to change. I wanted to be the friend that cared more about the friendships they had, and showed that. That’s not to say that my friends from home didn’t care, but only a few bothered to really show it. So as I embarked on my next four year adventure in Chapel Hill I decided to take the small town ambiance and translate it to a university whose undergraduate population was roughly the size of my hometown.

Has my plan worked? I honestly think it has. Every friend I’ve made in the past two years I made a point to get to know them beyond the classroom or our suite. I’ve made instant connections with people, because I learned growing up that people are an important part of who you are and where you’re going. No, not every friendship has worked out. The ones that have, though, are the reason that Carolina is my home away from home.

There’s not a day that goes by when I’m walking around campus that I don’t see anyone I know. I never imagined that would happen on such a large campus, but just like back home you’re gonna know majority of people cause you’re thrown together for four years.

So, to my hometown I’d like to say thanks. Because while growing up it kinda sucked to not always have a ton of things to do on a Friday night, you taught me a lot. You taught me what it meant to love people well, and where you fell short in teaching the part about truly caring for others college helped out. You taught me how to be personal in friendships and the importance of friendships. You taught me that growing and living together means through the good and the bad. But most importantly you taught me that you can know someone for your entire life without really knowing them, so why not stop and get to know them?

Some people may not understand the allure of small town North Carolina, but I get it because I've lived it. When I grow up I may never live in another small town, but for the last 20 years I’ve grown in one and learned what it meant to be a part of one. They have their flaws, for sure, but they’re also good to you and teach you life lessons you won’t learn anywhere else.