There is something special about my hometown, and I bet there is something special about yours, too. It’s the place you grew up. It’s the place you had your first kiss. It’s the place you left behind when you went off to college. It’s the place you were always itching to go back to come Christmastime. It’s your memories. It’s a part of you.

As college students, hometowns are more than just a resting place for when our “college lives” get to be too exhausting (all nighters, keg races, final exams, etc.). They are a special little piece of our past that we could always return to, like the wardrobe that led to Narnia. Though sometimes hometowns mean heartache, pain, and memories that we’d rather forget, they represent a piece of who we are whether we like it or not. The community within it raised us. You can always run from where you’re from, but that doesn’t change where you’re from.

I grew up in a relatively large suburban town in Massachusetts. Whenever asked to describe it, I like to compare it to a nation of its own, since it has a little bit of everything. There's urban, suburban, and rural parts. You say hello to your neighbors (whom you’ve known for years) with a friendly grin as you walk your dog down the street. You attend the football games on Friday night with genuine enthusiasm, and you can’t go to the grocery store without running into someone you know. To many, this could seem pretty great or it could seem absolutely terrible. I’ve leaned on both sides of that spectrum throughout my life.

No matter the circumstances, we were all born and raised in a place, or places. Without them we wouldn't have that little piece of charm that people ask, "Where are you from?"