What I miss most about my hometown

Ever since I can remember, all I wanted to do was leave my hometown for something bigger and better. I wanted to know what it was like to go out late at night and see it still buzzing and alive, or simply to be able to take a metro somewhere to another part of town. Despite preferring the quiet of the countryside, there was something about bigger towns and cities that made me want to experience them, along with their many possibilities.

There are things I certainly don’t miss about home. The lack of options for going out either at night or during the day, the wildlife roaming around in the streets or people’s gardens, or just the fact that wherever you went somebody always recognized you. Good luck trying to go somewhere in secret.

However, after moving so far away from home somewhere that seems so different, one can’t help but seek out the comfort of the smaller town. Whenever I walk around Newcastle, I miss the colourful buildings back at home that somehow made everything seem less monotone and grey; I miss the hills my town was surrounded by and feel strange and bare without them around; but most of all I miss the memories I could see whenever I looked at any corner.

During the night, when I hear people singing drunkenly under my window, or when I feel out of place and miss the sound of my own language, I think of the quiet nights at home. About hearing the TV play a series I grew up with in the background and aimlessly roaming a place I’ve lived in my entire life without a worry for my safety because I know every street and recognise the faces of people that pass me by. I know nothing will happen to me because nothing ever happens there, but this time, I don’t see it as something negative. It’s the little things of familiarity that cannot be replaced that I found myself looking back at with fondness.