I think everyone who is everyone who has a hometown has felt this way; you either live and go to school in the same town or you come home for the weekend and look around and realize how strongly memories seem to run through your veins when you find yourself there. Some people say they don't have a hometown because they moved around a lot, or they create one from the place that means the most to them.

Whatever the circumstances of your "hometown", we all have one. It's the place that seemed to raise you right alongside your parents. It's the place that seemed to grow up right along with you. It's the place that you have the map tattooed on the back of your hand. It's the place that, even if you say don't, there is always going to be that little tiny piece of you that misses something about it whenever you leave. It's pretty magical, don't you think? As humans, part of our needs is love and belonging. I have always thought that in some situations, love and belonging are not necessarily found in people, but in places. It almost feels as if you're hometown seems to have some kind of soul that provides you with the same feelings a human provides. When you are there you know where the best places to get food, the best places to relax, the best places to think. You know the personal things too, like the house where you stood with your high school friends in dresses that cost a fortune and corsages that seemed to have taken up your entire wrist to take pictures. You know the tree next to the town library that you stood under when you got your first kiss. You know where the Sonic is where you sat in your childhood best friends' car and talked about life, and boys, and what the heck you were going to do for the rest of your life because at that point you thought you knew. You know all the side streets because you used them to get home so you would be home to get home before curfew. Looking back, you probably realize that you found yourself in all of those moments. Those little seconds, minutes, and hours that passed quicker than you probably realized in that little piece of heaven that knows all of your secrets.

Especially in college, sometimes we forget that our Hometowns have our back. They are a safe place where everything is familiar. Everything contained in them is what we are and whether we realize it or not, they are a part of who we are still becoming.