The best coffee you will ever have in your life comes from your hometown. The most mouthwatering meal in a sit down restaurant comes from your hometown. The place where you sit down to catch up with your old friends over some fro-yo is in your hometown.

The sentimental feelings that carry you through your high school career, they become from your fondest memories. Like laughing as your drive away from your favorite coffee shop because the new barista spelled your name completely wrong. Maybe even the time when you and your best friend took the long way home and listened to a full length album with the windows down because it gave you a sense of freedom.

Your favorite places in town hold sentimental value because they are undoubtedly connected to memories.

Have you ever tried to be a tourist in your hometown? Try looking at the old brick buildings you pass on your way to school every morning in a new light. Take a snapshot in your mind of your eighth-grade brother when you pick him up from school and he has a smile on his face, it will not be like this forever. Instead of picking up your phone when you are at the light waiting for a passing train, take a moment to appreciate the beautiful graffiti on the train-cars. Next time you are at the coffee shop having a study session with your best friend since elementary school, take a moment to close your eyes in the moment and just try to soak it all in.

Sentimental value holds the deepest meaning in why Playa Azul is my favorite Mexican restaurant. Ask me why I still order the same children’s cheese quesadilla that I got when I was just eight-years-old every other weekend with my family and I will tell you it is because that is what I always get. Sentimental value holds the deepest interest in our favorite places.

Go to the Denny’s on South Hill, order the eggs in a basket off the value meal with a glass of orange juice and tip your waitress a few dollars more than you normally would ‘cause chances are she’s had a long day.

Take a few hours visit to the Karshner Museum and admire the history of Puyallup and those who lived before you. Listen to the lady at the counter who is eager to answer your questions.

Ask me in 10 years where my favorite coffee shop is and I can guarantee you I will answer with the Starbucks on South Hill where I sat many nights doing homework with my best friend, having deep conversations about the mysteries of life and often letting a tear escape my eyes. Those walls, soaked in the strong scent of coffee beans, know all of my deepest secrets.

Try it just once, maybe in a few years. During your break at the university two years down the road, travel back home for a week or so. Give it a week or so at most and try being a tourist in your hometown. Visit all the places you used to go as a kid, sneak out late nights with your friends to Denny’s just to get some two-dollar pancakes. Take pictures and evaluate the person you have become in that short amount of time. You will come to appreciate these simple things you once took for granted when you lived at home.

One day you might come to find that every town has that lady who has worked at the old diner for 15 years, raising her three kids, just trying to get her life together and move out of the apartments on the edge of the city. It is your job to get to know the people in your town, find out their stories.

Save yourself the heartache, take advantage of all the good around you now because one day they will not be the same. You will not always been in high school, living at home with your family who tends to bother you more than not. You will not always live a few houses down from your best friend’s house who you still drive to despite the lack of distance. Things won’t always be this way.

Of course, take the time to plan your future and maybe even stay home some nights to finish your college applications. Do your homework but go out some nights.

Live for today and try not to worry so much about tomorrow or what the future holds. You will only be as old as you are today once and the future is uncertain so love your life and those around you because life is so good. There are many doors of opportunity ahead, the road is uncertain for most of us but that does not mean you have to hate where you are at right now. It will not be like this for long.