As Published in Miss Millennia Magazine
The strangest feeling are the rush of memories that wash over you when you step foot on the old soil of your hometown. It isn’t the intricate arrangement of buildings, city lights or sounds that draw you into that pool of mind-refreshing energy, but the people you cared about when you lived there in your hometown and the many adventures you had that will tie you all forever with that familiar place.
Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
The warm state of mind that is created from the vivid flashbacks of my small town is definitely one of those experiences that beat any new destination. It’s very similar to the moment you find yourself missing the comforts of home while traveling abroad in another city. Just imagining yourself slipping into one’s familiar cozy sheets in their own bed is enough to draw any adventurous traveler back to the place in which they originated in.
“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.” -Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye
There is a reason why my sister and I list two different cities as our hometown on social media sites. The town I put down in my profile is where most of my memories were made. It’s where my best friend lives and the town that my first memory took place. For my sister her hometown is where she felt that she really grew up. Her best memories came from the other town we lived in, and it’s where most of our family lives.
Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it – memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. -Tad Williams
However, as we have both moved away and find ourselves living on our own in a bigger city, our new home has evolved from a place to a part of us where we keep our new and old memories, and where we love and trust others. Home is now the thing we take with us as we travel to new places and try new things. We can still carry all those feelings of home with us, but it will most likely never be as intense as the trips you take back to the place you consider your hometown.
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