What they don't tell you...

This is an essay I wrote for my creative writing class. Hope you like it.

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What they don’t tell you about attending college in the same town you grew up in is how painfully set apart you feel, no matter what outsiders might tell you. You will always feel different than them; that empty feeling of regret in the pit of your stomach reminds you every day.

Growing up, your backyard is littered with foreigners – folks from the cities, folks from out-of-state, folks from other countries. They’re all after the same thing, a plaque on their wall and a line on their resume. You get to know many of them, through church, through friends, through school, but most are gone in four years, maybe five. Relationships are recycled, new faces applied to the skeletons of old.

Your parents were foreigners once too – Dad from Cleveland, Mom from Detroit. The Appalachian university sucked them in like it sucked in the others, but refused to let them go, even after 30 years. They are not Appalachia and they did not raise you to be Appalachia. But they sent you to school with Appalachia and 21 years in Appalachia will make at least a small part of you Appalachia.

You become divided. Part of you begs to relate more with your poverty-stricken farm-friendly deer-killing high school peers. The other part, the part you eventually allow your college friends, feigns innocence to the local culture. Either way you feel judged when you move in with the foreigners. They have a name for you: townie.

What they don’t tell you about attending college in the same town you grew up in is how difficult it is to leave. Dad’s job gives you free tuition – end of story. Two of your sisters went to private college and your parents deserve a favor. Besides, they say, the field you’re interested in has a great program there. Top five in the country, they say.

You knew your whole life you would end up there anyway so you don’t put up a fight. The small percentage of your high school peers that moved on to college figured the same.

What they don’t tell you about attending college in the same town you grew up in is how incredibly bored you become with your supposedly wonderful surroundings. Such a beautiful campus, they tell you. Such a unique culture, they say. But when day after endless day is spent in this environment and your 21-year history knows nothing but, its value fails to impress. The lush greenery has always been there. The historic red brick is just a building. And your older sister made sure the whole “streets flowing with booze and debauchery” thing was old by sophomore year of high school.

What they don’t tell you about attending college in the same town you grew up in is how much you want to be like everyone else. You want to be experiencing a new town, a new surrounding. You want to have taken some chances. You want to see to the world. But so far your world consists of one town.

What they don’t tell you about attending college in the same town you grew up in is that all you ever wanted is to see the beauty everyone else got to see. Because no matter how much you complain, you still love it as home.