Let me start off by saying this: I love my hometown.

In fact, I think that my desire to never leave is most likely considered a little abnormal for a 20-year-old. I love my small town high school that glorifies Friday Night Football and the annual FFA Banquet as if we’re all superstars. I love driving down the road and naming the people we pass because I know what everyone drives. I love that my mom was my third grade teacher and I grew up hanging out in the halls of my school. I love being asked if I’m a Bradley and feeling nothing but proud when someone tells me they went to school with my dad or cousin or uncle or even grandpa. I love that I graduated high school sitting next to the same person I sat next to at our kindergarten round-up and that I go to church with my old sixth grade teacher. I love that everybody supports each other and how safe I feel when I’m home. Most importantly, I adore the fact that my entire family lives in my town and cherish the thought of raising my own family in the same place I grew up.

So when I tell you that leaving your hometown for school is something you should at least try, it’s not because I’m a kid who grew up wanting to get out – it’s because I’m somebody who never had an urge to leave - but needed to. I just didn’t know how badly I needed to at the time. I didn’t fully begin to understand how necessary it was for me to grow until after I had completed my first year of college.

For a person who loved her town and family so much, you can imagine when I signed a paper to go play ball for a school in Alabama how shocking it was to my community. It’s not that anyone ever doubted I could do it, it’s just that no one expected me to go that far away. Heck, I know I didn’t go into the recruiting process looking to go that distance, but it’s how my cards fell. If I had a dollar for every time somebody said, “Well are you sure you’re gonna make it all the way over there?” or “Man, that’s really far away for a small town girl,” I would probably have had enough money to buy myself a few plane tickets and save myself from driving the numerous seven hour trips home. I can’t say I wasn’t scared though. As moving day got closer and the initial excitement began to wear off, I began to panic. There were many nights when I would sit in the living room crying to my family, terrified that I had made a mistake. My parents, along with the rest of my family continually encouraged me to shake off the panic and follow my dreams. It was a fresh start, a learning experience and a full scholarship. What more could I ask for?

"All the way over there" was right though. Of course I made it two or three weeks before the homesickness kicked in. I was caught up in my new freedom, new friends, schoolwork and playing a full softball season. At first I didn’t have time to let it catch up, but when it did – it hit me hard. I missed my family. I missed seeing them in the stands at all of my softball games. I missed weekend get-togethers at my grandparents’ house and my heart ached when my little brother called me after his football game and I repeatedly told him how I wished I had been there to see his first varsity appearance. I missed home so much that I would drive 14 hours in two days just to spend some time at home any weekend I could. Eventually the pain turned into more than just homesickness. I felt like a failure. I had this amazing opportunity at this great school. I had a softball team full of girls I loved and I was succeeding in the classroom. Yet, I still wanted to quit and come home. I felt like just another hometown kid who couldn’t make it even a year away. After several e-mails to teams closer to home and many more talks with my parents, I finally decided Alabama just wasn’t the place for me. By the time second semester came around I had transferred out.

It took me a long time to stop looking at my leaving as a failure and to convince myself that doing the right thing for me was a mature decision and not just an excuse to leave when things got tough. I think that was difficult because even in the midst of those struggles, I still knew that moving to Alabama hadn't actually been a mistake. In fact, to this day I will vouch that it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life. I learned more than I would have ever learned if I had stayed home, and had too many great experiences to count. Just because I didn’t want to stay there forever didn’t mean I had not cherished my time there. Some of my best memories were made while there and a lot of growing up occurred for me. Ultimately, moving to Alabama began my journey into adulthood. Here are a few of the life lessons that shaped me, prepared me for my next step and will forever be cherished.

IT’S A BIG WORLD OUT THERE

It didn’t take me long to realize how sheltered I had been, not only by my parents, but my community as well. This, although not necessarily a bad thing, came as a hard lesson. I learned how truly lucky and blessed I had been to grow up where I did. I heard stories of hometowns that weren’t safe and cities that these students were willing to do anything to get out of. I met a new person with a new story every day. I attended a church that had more people in its congregation than I had in my entire school and instead of socializing the whole time, I opened my ears and focused on the sermon. I heard opinions on politics and news that had never crossed my mind before and opened my mind up to giving them a chance while also learning to respect others opinions whether they fit in with mine or not. I went on dates with boys of whom acted nothing like any of my guy friends from home and I learned from them. I visited my teammates’ hometowns and marveled at the differences while enjoying every second of new experiences I could process at once. I met people who had big dreams and no plan to return back home, and they taught me to dream bigger. Most of all I was treated as somebody who others wanted to get to know. I learned how to actually tell people about myself, something that was never really required from me at home because they’d been around me for so long that they assumed they knew who I was and what I stood for- and through this concept – I learned more about myself than I ever thought I would.

THE BEST OF FRIENDS COME FROM ALL AROUND

I met some of the most amazing people while in Alabama. While my friends from my hometown are the best I could ever ask for, there isn’t as much to learn from them because we all come from the same background. Through going to college away from home, I developed friendships with people from Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana and learned an abundance from each of them. In fact numerous conversations with hometown friends often involve us telling each other about our friends from different places and all of the things we pick up on from being around them. My softball team was filled with girls that had amazing traits to offer and we formed a bond that was stronger than any team I’d played with prior. Each friend blessed me with a type of friendship that others may spend their entire lives looking for. They loved me unconditionally, seeing me at both my worst and at my best – always accepting me for who I am. I learned a lifetime of lessons from the all-nighters we pulled, game-day bus rides we shared and tears we shed together. I left a piece of my heart in each state because I gained an irreplaceable friend in each one. Those friends taught me confidence and how to be strong no matter what life throws at you, but most importantly these friends never let me forget that I was enough. A concept that I had struggled with my entire life was fixed in a semester spent with these friends who constantly built me up instead of tearing me down. That is something I will forever be thankful for. The best part of these friendships built in such a short period is that they are so strong I can pick up the phone and call any one of them as if I never left. They say you meet “your people” in college and I certainly hit the jackpot in Alabama. I thank God every night that I was blessed with the opportunity to get to know the girls like I did and that I gained such lifelong friends.

INDEPENDENCE AND MATURITY ARE TAUGHT THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR

I thought I was super independent and mature my senior year of high school. I can’t help but laugh at myself now because independent in a small town versus independent living on your own seven hours away is completely different. I swear the first few weeks of college I didn’t go one day without calling my mom or dad to tell me how to do something because I was so stressed. The simplest things get you when you live in an unfamiliar place. You really have to grow up and learn how to deal with them yourself. Before going to college I had such bad social anxiety that I would never even think of doing simple things like stopping somewhere to ask for directions, and you could forget about me going in to talk to my teacher about something I didn’t understand. Oh, and giving a presentation in front of the class? That was a for sure no. You see, in my hometown, people understood how I was so these things were never forced upon me. My friends would order at the drive-thru or go return something to the store for me because I got nervous. My teachers would let me come into class early and present my paper to them alone because they knew my speech impediment got to me when I was nervous. Having understanding educators at that time in my life, was extremely important for me. However, in this new place my new friends and professors knew nothing of my background and I wasn’t going to be the one who told them (another tricky part of the whole anxiety thing). So I decided not to tell anyone and to work on handling these types of things on my own. I struggled with it for a while, but by the end of the semester I was doing things that I never thought I could. Is my anxiety gone? No way, but can I get by with a presentation to the class without passing out? Heck yeah I can! Will it be the best? Um no, not quite. But hey, progress is progress, right?

I learned quickly how to take care of everyday things on my own and in a timely manner. I was balancing my own checkbook, buying groceries once a week, doing my own laundry, communicating with people on my own instead of having others do it and navigating the roads of different states. Sounds like pretty simple procedures, but throw all of that on somebody who has never done it completely by themselves, let alone all at once, and see how they manage their time. Time management is just one other thing I learned between softball, school work, community service and social activities. I learned to say no when I had more important things to take care of, a form of maturity that I was never good at.

All of these traits are things I would have eventually learned even if I had stayed home, but not nearly as quickly and honestly, probably never as efficiently. The truth is there were times when I didn’t say no and stayed out too late, which resulted in a bad test grade the next morning. I'll never forget the time I forgot to check my balance and tried to checkout with no money on my card, a mistake more than one of us on the team made at some point. Or even the time I didn’t map out my route home from a friend’s house in Mississippi and lost service resulting in pulling over and using an actual map. The best part of these mistakes is that I learned from them and never made them again. Turns out, I learned so much that when an opportunity came to transfer to Centenary I didn’t shudder at the thought of being three hours away. Instead I took advantage of being closer, yet still on my own. Because of my experience in Alabama, I knew I could do it and I valued my independence. This resulted in another great decision in my life. I have found a college that's fitting for me, and I'm continuing to make more memories and learn new lessons with more people along the way.

So if you’re thinking about going off for college I urge you to do it.
Coming from somebody who never wanted to leave: it’s the best thing you’ll ever do.
Don't let your fear hold you back.
Sure you may not like it forever, but you’ll remember it and cherish the memories you make, friendships you gain, and lessons you learn for your entire life.

So take a chance, because when it comes down to it – you can always come back home.

I would know.