Growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina, can be a blessing and a curse. If you grew up here you know exactly what I mean by that without me having to explain myself. There’s no denying that this city is amazing; you have the beaches, cute little downtown shops, thriving night life, and amazing restaurants. However, that’s what tourists get to see when they visit -- what they don’t see is an amazing city that has somewhat of a black hole effect on locals.

I come from multiple generations of Wilmington natives; as with any smaller town, once your family’s roots are here, it’s nearly impossible to leave. You form connections to the city and the other people in it; you become attached and you become captive. It’s hard to grow in a town where nothing - besides business establishments -- changes. Circles of friends stay the same, grudges remain unbroken, the same people visit the same places and do the same things as if it were clock work.

I have to admit, none of this became apparent to me until I packed up everything I had collected over 18 years and transplanted myself halfway across the county. Before doing so, I too almost became a local to never leave; I had applied to UNCW, was accepted, continued living with mom, and carried out my first year of college in a town I had never left. Life had different plans for me; my situation changed and I had little choice but to move away.

Being a girl with anxiety, who had also never left Wilmington, was not a good combination for someone about to move away from home -- halfway across the country at that. The second my tires left the driveway I panicked. I instantly regretted my decision to leave and spend the entire 24-hour drive alone in my car, crying. However, once I reached my new home, I began learning things that you wouldn’t have a chance to learn until you left Wilmington. Here’s what I learned:

Very few of your “friendships” will remain in place after you leave Wilmington behind. It only took a week and a half before most, if not all, of my communication with my “friends” disappeared. Once you’re no longer there to serve any sort of purpose for those people, it is as if you never existed. Texts and calls stopped getting returned, they stop tagging you in things on social media, plans of them coming to visit you never become reality, and your friendship fades into a memory. This is just a fact of life and will happen regardless of how close you are, with very few friendships being an exception. (This is the part where I give a shout out to my childhood best friends, Sydney and Danny, for being that exception.)

You will miss out on a lot of things, but you’ll be experiencing things that a lot of people in Wilmington will never get a chance to. You’ll miss the annual Azalea Festival, the Flotilla, the Cape Fear Fair and Expo, and the Riverfest. You’ll miss hurricanes (at least I did), visiting the North End or Masonboro during the summer, PTs, Britt’s Donuts, J Michael’s and more. You will miss out on birthdays and holidays, and you’ll miss your family. There are little things that you take for granted by simply having grown up in Wilmington, and you won’t ever realize how much those things matter to you until you can’t have them.

Though you’ll be missing all of these things, it’ll all be waiting for you when you get back. What you will get to experience after leaving -- or at least this is what I experienced -- seeing the geography change as you drive through each state, hearing different accents and dialects, being told that “soda” is “pop” and a “buggy” is a “shopping cart.” You’ll get to experience actual snow and class not being cancelled, which means driving in snow and walking across campus in negative temperatures (you’ll actually need Uggs). You’ll get to drive in a town where it's not a death wish to be on the road. You’ll see stars you’ve never seen before, in a clearer sky than you’ve ever laid eyes on. You’ll experience a rodeo, you’ll see people walking around in cowboy hats and boots with spurs on a daily basis, and you’ll watch as the kid in front of you in lecture hall bids on a cow during class. You’ll experience a side of yourself that you wouldn’t have if you stayed in Wilmington.

When it comes time to return home, you’re going to feel like everyone has changed, but they haven’t. Keep in mind when visiting or moving back that the people who stayed didn’t change, you did. They haven’t had their chance to grow because they haven’t cut off the toxic hold that Wilmington has on them, but you did. You got out and got to see it from an outsider’s perspective. You grew, you experienced life outside of this town, and you changed for the better, so don’t hold it against them if they have yet to do the same.

It may seem as if I am downing Wilmington, but I’m not. It took me leaving to realize that it is one of very few cities in which I would willingly live and build my life. Wilmington is a great city, but there’s an entire world outside of here and you’re selling yourself short if you never break the chains and go experience it.