We all have this perception of what our hometown is like, and we know our way around it like the back of our hands. We all know that things change: You go off to school and when you come back, everything seems different. Growing up in what I thought was a small town in Georgia, I left for Newberry College for something new and different, and now I love South Carolina. I never knew of the changes that were happening back home, and I'd never thought that my hometown would change in such a short amount of time.

We all have a picture of home in our minds. For me, it’s a small town with my high school right down the street, and Atlanta is 45 minutes away. That’s all I had to compare my hometown to, until I came to Newberry College. Newberry is a small town, and there is not a lot to do, so going back home was a shock to me.

I never realized how much there was to do in my hometown. I could walk to our outside mall and go to a movie, get Starbucks, go shopping—heck we even have a full-blown candy store that I could go to. I’ve always pictured home as this quiet town where everyone knows everyone, but now I realize that my perception of home was wrong. Everything is changing back home. For example, my high school was awesome because everything was outside. Students had to walk outside in order to go into another building. Sure it sucked when it rained but it was so much fun when the parking lot became a lake. Now my high school is completely indoors. I understand why they decided to do this, because safety of students is very important. But that is what made my high school different from the others.

Maybe that’s what growing up is like: you don’t expect changes to happen. You have to learn to roll with them and use those changes in a positive light. In a way, I have changed too. I am not the little girl I once was. I have become more mature while being at college. Perhaps the town I grew up in is changing for the better, just like me. I’ll always remember what my hometown is and what it was like before I left for college. Nostalgic memories make people happy, and every time I leave for Georgia, I’ll remember my hometown, and I’ll always expect changes.