College is a great excuse to pack up and fly out of your parent’s nest to find out who you really are. It is where you meet life-long friends, build a career and realize there are more responsibilities in life than just keeping your room clean. But what do you do after the textbooks are read, the red solo cups are in the trash and you have a piece of paper you paid entirely too much for? Hopefully, you did your best and learned something, or at least enough to get yourself a decent job. Where do you go from there?

In high school, you couldn’t wait to get out of your hometown. You despised your parents settling there and wished you could have grown up somewhere more exciting. How nice of us to keep our promises until we turn 18, and then dump on our hometown and lives that our parents have worked so hard for. Maybe you watched too much "Gossip Girl", and wanted to grow up in New York to have the best fashion taste. Or maybe you watched too much "Laguna Beach" and wanted to grow up in California so you could go to the hottest clubs and surf the waves. But here you are, in your Podunk hometown that doesn’t consist of much. Which is exactly why you should go back when it is all said and done.

Your hometown is what raised you, (with the help of your parents, of course). But this is the place that shaped you into the person you are today. You have roots there, and if you are anything like me, your life is there. Was it really so bad? You have obviously made it this far, and at one point made some right decisions to get you where you are today. You want to be a doctor? There’s a hospital nearby. You want to be a writer? Newspapers are still a thing. My point is, you can do whatever you want, wherever you want. Take the knowledge you have learned and bring it back to help better your hometown.

In your 20s, I understand you don’t have your future kids or aging parents in mind, but that is exactly why you should move back home. To give your children the (hopefully) good life you had, and to be closer to your parents and family. They want to see you lead a successful life too. Pause Netflix for a second, and just imagine your kids running the same route you did for school, cheering at the same basketball games, or playing on the same football field. Think about your kids drinking coffee in the same coffee shop you did. Not so bad after all, eh? So go ahead. Experience college, branch out, and travel! But at the end of it all, your hometown really is where the heart is.

In a world of constant change, always remember where you came from, your roots, and your family. -Olivia Culpo