Thank you for being a small town. I made the closest friendships purely because my kindergarten and graduating classes were small. I had the same friends from kindergarten until graduating high school. Thank you for having a family feel anywhere I went. Every friend I had turned into a sibling away from home, and their parents like an interchangeable second set of my own parents.

Thank you for the late nights, the friends I will never forget, and some of the greatest football games against school rivals I have ever seen. Thank you for my high school sweetheart, (I love you!), and for making him one that I think is a keeper. Thank you for the softball games, the best coaches, and the best teammates.

Thank you for having the best small town restaurants around. The owners and employees have always been some of the nicest, most understanding people I have ever known. Thank you for going out on a limb, and finding my small town to set up camp and build your life. Thank you for having something unique; a taste all your own (also, thanks for knowing my order as soon as I walk in the door.)

Thank you for giving me the best memories. I could not imagine my life the way it has gone anywhere else. Thank you for being the place I know I can always return to where my family will always be with open arms. Thank you for staying the same for whenever I need to return; whenever I need that small town feel.

Thank you for having teachers that are like a third parent. Thank you for having the teachers that have multiple different kinds of classes, so I ran into the same one, upwards of three times a day. Thank you for making it so easy to have a teacher-student friendship, instead of just being a number compared to your peers. Thank you for making it easy to have my teachers be a main part of my support system when I left my small town to move onto bigger things.

Thank you for being so small, not just in population, but in square miles. My cousins were practically right up the street, and my best friends were right around the block. This made it impossible to not have a tight knit family and community. My family get-togethers were never awkward or boring because I knew my cousins so well, and we were never apart.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me leave. Thank you for preparing me for this life and giving me everything I would need to succeed. Thank you for showing me that my dreams were far too big for such a small town. Thank you for all of the bad times, and especially for all of the good times, that have filled my heart over the years and have taught me to love so endlessly. Thank you for showing me that good people really do still exist, but also that some of the best people turn out to be the worst for you. Lastly, thank you for being my home, no matter where in town I lived at the time.