As much as I call myself a city girl, my cliche small town is my favorite place on this planet. Marblehead, Massachusetts has a lot to offer in its area of just a little over four square miles. While the town itself is adorable and has so many little shops and restaurants to explore, its best feature, in my opinion, is the ocean.

People have said to me my whole life, "You are just so lucky to live where you do, so close to the ocean." When I was younger, this was something I got sick of hearing. I didn't even go to the beach that often. The water was too cold and the beach was packed in the summertime.

But after leaving for college and being away from my hometown for extended periods of time, I found that I longed for the ocean. I missed the smell of the sea breeze, the small town feel, being able to walk down a street without hearing a siren every two minutes. City life proved to be very different than small town life.

This may sound like your cliche small-town girl moves to the big city and longs for home-type of story. But the truth is that I took my little town for granted. In high school, my friends and I used to talk every single day about how much we hated Marblehead. The small town politics, the rich people, the school system...we couldn't wait to break free and explore the world beyond the Marblehead bubble. We felt trapped and we were growing restless, ready to take on the world.

My first few months away from home were amazing, but I'll never forget the first time I went back home after moving to college. It was a strange feeling. At first it was very foreign and I felt incredibly out of place, as though I didn't belong in Marblehead anymore. College had forced me to grow up, and all of the memories I had been creating in Boston didn't want to come back with me to Marblehead.

Over the last two years, I've never been happier to live so close to home. When I'm sick and can barely get out of bed, I call my mom and she picks me up at my dorm and takes me home, where she makes me soup and tea until I'm better. When I'm packing up at the end of the school year, I don't have to have all of my boxes shipped across the country; I can just load them into the Lexus and be home in less than an hour.

So thank you, Marblehead. You've been good to me.