To the place I will always call home, thank you.

Thank you for showing me how a community so small can come together at times when it is most needed. Thank you for showing me that it is okay to be myself, because the town as a whole is full of different types of people. Thank you for being the place where I learned everything for the first time. It is here that I learned how to tie my shoes, my ABCs, how to read and write, and so much more. Thank you for being the place where I met some of my very best friends in life.

This town guided my steps as I walked into my kindergarten year all the way until I walked off the graduation stage. This town gave me everything I've encountered in life. It gave me an education, a job, but most importantly, a home. Nothing will compare to kayaking on the lake, or hiking the mountain that is pretty much in my backyard. Nothing compares to the Friday night football games, or the times when your sports teams make it to playoffs. Nothing compares to meeting the someone you hope to spend the rest of your life with.

With all this town has offered me, it is time for me to say goodbye. It is time to say goodbye to the people, schools, lakes, and mountains. This town showed me that I have so many possibilities in life. It showed me that I can be anything I want to be. I do not have to stay in this town. I can travel, settle, go on many adventures, and see anything I want to see.

I will miss my friends. I will miss my family. I will miss the people I associated with that I know I will never see again. But that is the beauty in all of it. It is the knowing I can always come back if I want to, because it will always be here. It is the beauty in knowing that my feet once touched the turf that other cleats are touching. The beauty in eventually being able to watch my sister walk across the same graduation stage as I did.

Now I know that a lot of people feel this way about their town. I know everyone has their own favorite place to go to, or favorite thing to do. Along with those people, I think we all have something in common. We all are able to call our town, home. That is why this place is so special to me. Because most people in the world will not be able to call Orange, MA their home.

It is like everyone says, there is no place like home.