Where I'm from, it's the dream of every high school student to leave this small, redneck town upon graduation in pursuit of the "real world." I can't say that I varied much from this cliché. In fact, I adhered to it more ardently than most. Any of my classmates could tell you that I had nothing nice to say about our rural town. I found no charm in its staunch old-fashioned ways, and I honestly believed anywhere would be better than here. Now, I actually have spent a year away from my hometown. I did get away from it as I so desperately wished, and I have come back from my journey a wiser person. My greatest revelation just so happens to be that this town wasn't as bad as I thought it was.
I want to thank my hometown for making me caring and polite. I thought that the whole world held the door for everyone and always smiled when passing strangers in a grocery store. I was wrong. I'm so proud to come home and see the entire community rallying around a young girl in need of a lung transplant or a severely injured man with mountainous medical bills. I want to thank my small town for teaching me communal values, and for showing me that "every man for himself" is a disgrace to human nature.
I want to thank my town for teaching me what really matters in life. I learned here to judge a person by their character rather than the figures in their bank account. I come back home with tales of countless individuals whose system of values and daily actions are based on the all mighty dollar. The first thing they talk to you about, the thing they care most about, is money. I want to thank my town for teaching me to be disgusted rather than impressed by this behavior.
Most of all, I want to thank my town for teaching me that something doesn't have to be perfect to be good. I spent my whole life in this rural area, and it became very easy to pick out every negative. My town, like everything, certainly has its faults. I learned this year, though, that these problems were far more minor than the issues that I would have faced had I grown up in a more populated area. This lesson didn't suddenly make the bad attributes of my town disappear. It simply made me focus on them less and appreciate the positives all the more.
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want to have been raised anywhere else. I've learned to take the good with the bad, and my town's redneck ways are far from the worst "bad" that exists. I was the last person anyone would have expected to be hometown homesick, but I do often long for the warmness, the simplicity, and the grit of my old farm town. Thank you for making me the person I am today. And to the graduating high school students that think they will never be where I am: give it a few months away from home before you turn on that familiar country music that you once despised so much.
