This past month I moved into my own apartment in Springfield to start school. I lived in Dixon my whole life and loved it (for the most part). Although I knew that I needed to explore elsewhere and find myself out of the 10-mile radius I was comforted by. I realized things are WAY different from the city.

For one, people don't say "Ope" as much whenever you have to get by them in the store. Which is a love-hate reaction at this point?

Whenever people ask where I'm from, I have to list the biggest city near my town because they have no idea what vicinity my little cow-town is. Whenever someone does know, you more than likely played sports against their little cow-town too.

My town doesn't have stop lights so at times that can be confusing with the intimidating traffic on a three-lane road. No one waves at each other, whereas back home everyone waves at everyone (maybe because I was related to half of them but that's not the point). Although I haven't gotten quite used to driving in the city, no one has given me a hard time about it so they are probably used to all the new people being awful, aka me.

Whenever I have to go somewhere, I've always used my GPS on my phone, wherein Dixon I knew the place like the back of my hand. I didn't even have to think when I was driving. Let's not mention I could only listen to maybe 2 songs before I got to school from my house.

There are so many different options for food, clothes, and really just anything. Sushi at 1 AM? No problem. However back home, you'd have to drive 20-25 minutes to find your nearest Walmart.

What I have to say is, challenge yourself. Nothing is wrong about loving where you're from, but I encourage you to step out of that radius comfort zone and explore. Of course, I'll always love my little one of a kind town, but I'm learning to love Springfield and their ways too.