To My Hometown,

Hey, it’s me, back after months apart. Sorry to leave you hanging. I’m sure my favorite deli missed my constant order and the gas station missed me putting $5 on pump #4. I’m also sorry to say that coming home made me remember why I left in the first place. It showed me my old high school and the places I used to go to with my friends. My hometown brought me back to the place I have no real use for anymore. Where I’ve been for most of life and where I don't have anything more to see or learn or experience.

Coming home for the summer also reminded me of how much my life has changed since attending a university. It showed me the local foods that I missed so much. The places I used to go to on a late-night quest for food. It showed me the views I used to hike to and the waterfronts I’d spend lazy days beside. It brought me back to the friends I've had since I was little. Being home brought me back to a safe place where I could exhale and not have to be so constantly independent.

Coming home showed me how much I matured over the year I spent fending for myself in a dorm and at a school in a city where I didn’t always have the best of luck.

In college I wrecked a few items of clothing in the dryer. I broke a few dishes and burnt a few meals while trying to make myself food. I fell down the stairs once or twice and got my hair stuck in the elevator. I got really sick to the point where I was rushed to the ER and so happy that I might’ve celebrated too hard at 10 a.m. There was a good amount of crying and a good amount of laughing until I couldn't breathe.

In college I learned how setting one alarm is not enough because your mom is not there to be your extra alarm clock. I learned that if I want my sheets changed, I have to remember to designate time to do laundry. I learned to send a professional email and make appointments for myself. I learned how to make it to class even if my bed was trying to hold onto me and that all-nighters are sometimes necessary to make the grade. So when I came home for my first summer after college where I didn’t really need anyone to be home at dinnertime or need a reminder to get to work on time, I saw that change in myself.

I don’t see my hometown the same way I did when I was going into kindergarten or graduating senior year of high school. My hometown has become a relic of what my life was leading up to where I am now. As a good friend of mine once told me, I used up all the possible resources and opportunities that my hometown gave me through my years of schooling before going away to college. There is nothing here to help me grow in my career, my social life or my aspirations. I can’t maximize on my potential here. That’s why I went away to get a higher education. Because it was the right fit for me in my life and the things I dream of accomplishing.

So hometown, I do love and appreciate you. With your tiny shopping mall, multitude of family-owned pizzerias and your knack for always having some sort of power outage, thank you. Thank you for everything you gave me throughout the first stages of my life. Thank you for allowing me to rise up from the people that tried to tear me down from who I am. Thank you for the name-calling, the nasty notes and the tweets that were meant to make me shrivel up and be small. Thank you for teaching me kindness even in the darkest of nights and for showing me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if you’re willing to keep looking.

And hometown, thank you for always being there with open arms when it’s time to come home.

Lots of love,

Your Rising Sophomore College Student Who’s Leaving Again in a Week

(sorry again!!)