Hometowns either get stellar remarks or a horrible reputation. People either love it or hate it.

I gave my parents a lot of trouble about my hometown.

"It's too boring."

"There's nothing to do."

"It's only cool if you can go out really late."

The 15-year-old me hated my hometown. Really, I didn’t think it was much of anything until recently. I’m leaving, going away to college, moving out of my hometown to face a new adventure.

I didn’t understand until recently, that while it seemed boring to me, my hometown wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I got lucky with my hometown because, in reality, if I had just wanted to look for fun things to do, I could have found them.

In my hometown, we have a really large mall. Four floors, an ice rink, a ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, a movie theater (including Imax) and at one point, a rollercoaster.

It now has a jungle jump spanning all four floors. There’s laser tag, a full-function gym, a Dave and Buster's, virtual reality simulators, a bowling alley and tons and tons of food options. Those are the ones I could think of, but I’m sure there’s more options that I don’t remember. These are things that most malls don’t have, but as a kid growing up there, it seemed really normal.

I never really took advantage of those options to kill my boredom, instead I spent most of my time on the Internet or complaining to anyone who would listen about how boring it was in town.

The mall isn’t the only thing I never truly appreciated, but all of the hiking trails and natural wonders we had around. I can think of two lakes, multiple amazing hiking trails, a river and probably way more that I never discovered because I didn’t want to be bothered to.

I had so many options and I never utilized them. When people ask about my hometown, my first thought is boring. I realize now that it was completely my fault. It wouldn’t have been boring if I had tried to look for new options to consume my time.

I didn’t want to change routine, didn’t want to try anything new, making everything that I had already tried boring. I have resolved myself to answer things about my hometown a little more open-mindedly. Instead of shutting down the question with the routine answer of “boring,” I might talk about the amazing bakeries we have or the coolest spots around. Maybe I’ll talk about the Memorial Day parade the town holds and how all the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts march in it and how cute they all are in their uniforms.

Boring was me setting myself in a box and wanting my hometown to be boring, because hating your hometown is super cool as a kid. I’m pretty fortunate for my hometown, not just because of all the options I had with fun activities, but the education system. I received a great education, which not a lot of people can say.

I am lucky for my hometown and for the first time, I can say I’m proud to be from Rockland County. As a kid, it never seemed like fun, but looking back on it, my hometown had a lot going for it.