Like many young adults, before moving away from home, I couldn't wait to get out of my hometown. I remember always complaining about it being such a small town with nothing to do, but my parents would always say that people would pay thousands of dollars just to come on vacation in this area.

In high school, I could not wait to leave my hometown after I graduated. When I decided to take a gap semester before going off to college, I didn't really think very much that I would start to miss my hometown. After being in Europe for a few months, I began to really miss the area I grew up in.

It wasn't until then that I also realized just how beautiful this area is that I had been taking for granted all this time. I couldn't wait to come home after being away for five months straight and I couldn't wait to come home after being away at college this semester also.

When I was in Europe, I stayed in a large city, with a lot of people and cars around, which created a lot of pollution. Now I am grateful for having the opportunity to live in a town that rests on Lake Michigan and has hundreds, if not thousands of miles of beaches both on Lake Michigan and the many surrounding inland lakes. I also came to appreciate the clean air that comes with living in this kind of an area.

For the first 11 years of my life, we lived in a house that was a ten-minute walk from a state park beach. I remember spending a lot of time there playing in the sand/water and just having fun, but my favorite part, I've realized, was watching the sunsets over the lake. That is something that I took for granted and now it's too late, because my parents sold the additional property that we had in that area. The sunsets are still pretty where we live now, but none compares to ones over Lake Michigan.

Another reason why I came to love my hometown is that it may be small compared to other cities, but that's what I love about it. Now I know that I would not be able to live in a large city like Chicago or Los Angeles.

I also came to realize that Michigan and the surrounding area have so many things to offer in terms of entertainment, arts, history and things to do. If you can't think of anything to do or just don't have the money, a day on the beach is a great way to spend the day.

I am so privileged to be able to live in an area with so much beauty and that is only a few hours drive from anywhere else in the state, including, as they say, never being more than 30 minutes away from a state park.