You can roll your eyes at your hometown and still thank it. It raised you with what it had.

Two feelings about the same place can both be accurate. The town was small or dull or short on opportunity, and it also fed you, taught you, and had people in it who knew your name. Honesty about the limits does not cancel the debt, and gratitude does not require pretending it was more than it was.

Make the list both ways once: three things you are glad to be leaving, three things you will quietly take with you. Say the second list out loud to somebody who stayed. Complaining is easy and free; the other half takes a sentence and almost nobody bothers.