We all have hometowns—those places that we grew up, the place where everybody knows everybody. The place where you know every back road and every local restaurant that have the best food. The place that holds the majority of the best and worst memories of your life. The place that, no matter where you go, you're reminded of someone or some time in your life.

Hometowns are undoubtedly special; they all hold a special place in our heart. But it's around the age when we take off for college and a new adventure that we're ready to escape from our hometowns. By this time in our lives, it's as if we're sick of it and everyone in it. We want something new, something different. We feel as if we've learned everything we could possibly learn while being in our hometown, and we're ready to move on to a bigger, better place that will take us on a new journey. We want to meet new people and experience new things. We want to grow in ways we feel our hometown can't help us. We just want to escape. We hate it here.

So we pack up and leave. We move to that bigger and better place. We feel good because we've managed to escape—because who would want to stay there for the rest of their lives? We felt happy for others when we saw them move away from our hometown, and now we can be happy for ourselves because we've managed to do the same. We arrive at this new place and feel a sense of adventure. It's a breath of fresh air to look around and not be familiar with what you see. It's amazing to go places and not have a memory of that time you were heartbroken. We're in a new place in our life, and it's time to move on.

We make new memories in this new place. We make new friends. We get familiar with it. It becomes like a new home to us, but we realize that it's not. This is not my home. We love it here and love the people, but something is missing. We look around and are familiar with this new home of ours, but we still don't know it. We haven't been there for as long; we haven't lived through as much of it's history. We don't know every back road; we don't even know if it has any. We go places and don't see very many familiar faces. Before we know it, we feel alone.

We miss our home. We miss the people. We feel somewhat disconnected with them. We notice that we're longing to see the faces of the people we were ready to escape from. We look forward to breaks for the chance to go home, back to that place where we feel so safe. We miss waking up in our big, warm bed. We miss our pets. We miss waking up to the voices of our parents, our siblings—our family. We miss the traditions we had back home. We miss getting to visit our grandparents whenever we wanted. We miss being close to our best friends. We hate being so far away from them when they need us. We miss going to church every Wednesday and Sunday.

We miss the quietness and stillness of our hometown. We miss the mountains of trees, trails of leaves, and quiet rivers. We miss how simple it was, and how peaceful it is. We miss those places we can grab a good book, warm coffee, and sit for hours in peace. We miss those places where we can go and have nobody find us if we please. We miss being able to sit on our roof on a warm summer and feel the breeze. We miss being able to walk across the street and visit family. We miss the big gatherings and random visits from our childhood friends just because.

This new place is my home, but it is not my home. Whether we like to admit it or not, our hometown and the people in it will always mean so much to us, no matter where we go or where we are in life. There's a part of us that loves going back—and maybe, just maybe, there's a part of you that never wants to leave. Because being at home for the rest of your life? Well maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

"It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life." – Bilbo Baggins