No matter what city you call home in the future, you will only have one hometown.
Going away for college has become a sort of rite of passage for teenagers. For some, it is the best decision to stay at home for college, but many high school seniors choose to move to another town for school. Moving out of the house and into a college dorm at 18 years old is a big deal, especially if you’re in a whole new city. Navigating a new city is super tricky. For a lot of people, college is the first time they’ve spent an extended period away from home. The homesickness is inevitable. But for me, learning the ins and outs of a new city made me come to appreciate the familiarity of my hometown so much more.
Absence made my heart grow entirely fonder of my hometown. Things like knowing the route to my friends’ houses by heart, being a regular at the coffee shop down the street, and good old fashioned home cooked meals became what I thought about most when I first moved away. Nothing at all can compare to the comfort of your hometown, no matter where you come from. Being away for weeks or months at a time makes visits home so wonderful. I spend the weeks leading up to a weekend at home planning out time to do every little thing I’ve been missing about my sweet city while I’ve been away.
Hometown pride is a strange phenomenon. I love my hometown, Kansas City, but I still chose to move to St. Louis for college. Every day I feel more and more at home here in STL, but that in no way diminishes my love for KC. Living in a different city has been one of the greatest experiences for me. I have so much love for both KC and STL, which I didn’t even know was possible until I moved away. There is something so sweet about having an amazing hometown that’ll always be there for me, but it’s also a great thing to have a whole other city to call home.
It is comforting to know that my hometown is such a special city to me, but I’m not limited to feeling at home in just one place in this world. Since I can’t go more than 5 minutes without quoting The Office, I will end on this quote by Creed Bratton: “No matter how you get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home.”