A home town. We all have one. For me, it is rural Lewis Center, Ohio. For some, it may be a bustling city, with corner store bodegas every block, or a sprawling suburbia. Some people love their home town, some are haunted by it. Some people stay their entire lives within the tristate area, while others spread their wings and flock to new locales.

For me, I grew up in a fairly rural area. It was next to a state park, so flora and fauna were in no short supply. It was the kind of place where Steak and Shake was the place we frequented after every single sporting event, and the country roads were our playground. Other people may have cities to grow up in, but our mark of growing up was being able to drive to the mall, rather than being dropped off there.

When I was entering high school, I thought that I would sooner die than stay in Ohio. However, as I traveled through the trials of high school, I realized Ohio was pretty cool after all. I began to value the small hole-in-the-wall joints like Hamburger Inn in Delaware, Ohio, to the back roads that are host to some of my cherished memories. I fell in love on these roads, had my first real heartbreak, and began to grow up in this town.

However, as it goes, graduation loomed. With that came the decision to choose where I would spend the next four years of my life. I had always been known as that crazy mountain girl, who would live on skis if she could. Colorado seemed like the ultimate playground for my fantasies, but it was all about taking the leap. I would no longer be a hop, skip and jump away from anything I had ever known before, which secretly terrified me. Yet while it terrified me, it was thrilling. I decided it was time to make the leap and leave Ohio.

I could not have made the better decision.

Ask anyone that has gone out of state for college or work and has grown to love it. There is something utterly unique about living two separate lives 1,300 miles apart from another, and finding out the world isn’t so big after all.

The biggest thing about leaving is that it made me realize just how much I value my home town. I grow to miss the cheddar cheese on Skyline chili with spaghetti, singing Carmen Ohio after the Buckeyes are yet again victorious, and hugging my best friend after a long absence. While these things are all cherished to me, I would not trade leaving for anything. Leaving made me take stock of the valued things in my life, opened my eyes to new cultures and an entire new region of the United States, and helped me know what really matters in my life.

So if you were just offered that job, that college acceptance letter, or any new opportunity that takes you away from your home town, take it. Taking the leap is the hardest step, but it is well worth your time. You never know what you might gain out of it.