Your hometown. It's the place that shaped who you have become. So many milestones were reached, tears shed, laughter boomed, and lasting memories were made here. For most of us college-aged kids, it's been the only world we've truly known up until now. Before beginning college, my hometown was my personal paradise, and I swore I would live there my whole life. However, as I have experienced life in a different place and had the ability to travel, I have come to the realization that my hometown just isn't my home anymore. It's now just a place that holds so much of my past, but none my future.

Many of you reading this, I'm sure, can relate to how I feel. Being in a close-knit community for the 18 most formative years of your life can make you believe that there's no better place to be. Growing up, I was close with so many of my schoolmates and was never without a friend. Everyone knew everyone as well as each other's business and that was just the norm, as is with any tight community. Also, being the daughter of the local Elementary/Middle School music teacher made it impossible to not run into at least a dozen people who knew my name, and that made me feel safe and secure. It was like having one big, extended family, something I should have appreciated more.

So high school graduation came and soon I moved up to college in Maine. I'll admit, that first semester I really missed my hometown and everyone in it. I even had a memory collage of photos on my dorm wall. It was a tough time emotionally for me. However, as I made new, dear friends and found my place in my college community, I started to feel more and more disconnected from my hometown everyday. The summer I came home from Freshman year, I felt so out of place. I had lost so many ties with the kids I grew up with and even ended some friendships with people who I now realize were toxic.

Every summer or break when I'd come home I felt more and more like a visitor and not a community resident. Yes, my home felt the same and my relationship with my parents was the same, but everything else felt off. I'll be honest, I really do envy those I went to high school with who managed to stay close friends with each other. It downright sucks being home from college and barely having anyone to see as you've only managed to stay in touch with two of your childhood friends. It can be really lonely. Now when I walk through my hometown I just see memories. I see the recreation center where I worked each summer in high school, I see the driving school where I learned how to drive, I see the bakery where I would go every Sunday with my parents since I was 3-years-old (at least my favorite pastries are still there), and I see my old schools where so much growing and changing occurred. But now, these places are just shells that house the near and dear memories of my upbringing.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who dreads going home and would rather stay at campus. Right now, my college feels like home to me, as so many amazing and prominent memories have been made there, and just like it once was in my hometown, I see so many people I know wherever I go and that feeling gives me a sense of belonging and security. However, it truly breaks my heart to realize that the place I spent my whole childhood and teen years, where I laughed, cried, learned, has no place for me anymore; the glass of my provincial snow globe has been broken.

I guess this is a natural part of life. We grow and change as we age and have new experiences. What we wanted three or four years ago may not be what we want now, and even what we want now may not be what we want in the next three or four years. It's normal to feel like you don't fit in anymore in the place you once considered your whole world, for it just means that you're ready to turn a whole new chapter in the book of your life.

So to my hometown, thank you for forming me into the woman I am today. I will forever cherish the good times, the bad times, every memory, and you will always have a piece of me. But it's time to move on, time to step out into this big, scary world and create a new home. I've realized you don't have to be tied down to one place forever, and just as a sail boat leaves its dock to venture the vast oceans, you should do the same. Eventually, you'll know where to drop your anchor.