After (almost) a whole summer at home from my first year of college, I cannot wait to be back in my college town. With that being said, I loved being home for the summer and just taking a break from real life for a while. I know as soon as I'm back I'll be thrown right back into my hectic routine that comes with school and I will most likely miss home again. When you're at school, you miss home. When you're at home, you miss school. It's just how it goes.

For 18 years I grew up in the same town; I had the same friends, went to the same grocery store, same restaurants, same everything. Being back for almost four months is weird, though. Not so much now, but at the beginning of the summer, everything that once was so normal is now almost foreign to you. After living three hours away for a majority of the year, your college town becomes normal. The restaurants at school are your new normal. The Target, the Publix, the nightlife all become your new normal.

When I first got home at the end of April from school, I was in the "honeymoon" stage of break. I loved every second of being home and it was so nice to be back in my bed, and it still is. But it has lost all the glitz. I'm just kind of bored and I know I'm not the only one. I love my hometown, but that's exactly what it is. A hometown. As weird as it is to say, my life isn't here anymore. My school, my friends, my apartment; it's all in another town.

A hometown is somewhere you go and can feel safe. When I need a break for a weekend, coming home is so nice. You can forget everything happening at school and just unwind. The people here know everything about you and genuinely care how you are doing. You can run into one of your parents' friends at the store and have a 15-minute conversation like it's nothing, you can run into your best friend's mom running errands and she automatically will invite you over for dinner.

I think Carrie Underwood phrased it the best, "Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in when you were dying to get out." You may change after leaving, but your hometown doesn't change.