AMY CORTNER

Things really became skewed when I got to high school. Like every other adolescent I knew, I hated my hometown -- because it was my hometown. I wanted out. Period. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go (and in my case, nobody to date, so even teen romance was out of the picture). Worst of all, it had finally dawned on all of us that, to a real extent, we had to admit that we were from "here" -- since we had been born "here" and raised "here." What a terrible moment of truth that was! Instead of plain Americans, we had become a deformed hybrid.

Primary location: Connellys Springs United States