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By Jakob Sherrard
**Written before the COVID-19 Quarantine**
“I cannot wait to get out of here.”- Every college student before leaving for college.
After moving up to a city the size of Louisville and leaving behind my hometown of Elizabethtown I quickly began to learn a lot. A lot about myself, a lot about Louisville, and strangely enough a lot about my hometown. I realized that the place I strove to escape for the past few years of my life did have redeemable qualities that I failed to consider, and that I regretfully failed to appreciate while I was living there. Really it's the little things: solitude, nature, having family and familiarity readily available; things that you realize you appreciate the most when they’re not available at a moment’s notice. While, yes, not everyone feels the same way about their hometowns, I do ask that each of us stop and really cherish what our hometowns have given us. We are so driven by ambition that oftentimes we forget to stop and reflect on where we’ve come from and that our origins are a large part of who we are, and as a result, where we’re going to go.
Now, when I go home, I stop and I appreciate the opportunity to be surrounded by vast fields and trees; I take a few moments alone with my thoughts since I’m not surrounded by the hustle of metropolitan Louisville. Stopping and slowing down is what going home is supposed to be. We’re supposed to see those we love in the place we think we’ve outgrown, and we’re supposed to stop and consider that our lives are tied to more than school and whatever other things we may be involved in at UofL. We’re supposed to be reminded that we come from a community, and that our hometowns taught us the meaning of community.
After growing out of the hometown-loathing stage of young adulthood, I have just one question: why? Why do we feel the need to ridicule and demean the places that we grew up? Now, I’m not the first person to point out something critical about my home community, and while I don’t see myself living in Elizabethtown permanently, it’s important to me that I remind myself of the role that my hometown has played in my life. I also hope that more often we do collectively admire where we’ve come from. After all, it seems to me that if one views themself as a person with redeemable qualities, we do owe the development of those qualities to the place we were raised in.
Jakob Sherrard, of Elizabethtown, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2023. He is studying political science and history at the University of Louisville.
Jakob Sherrard, of Elizabethtown, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2023. He is studying political science and history at the University of Louisville.