No one likes to move, there’s a reason everyone isn’t always clambering to pick their entire lives up and relocate every few years. It’s a process that involves planning, organization, and physical labor.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t do very well with any of those things (especially the third one). I would much rather have a day in watching Netflix- it’s relaxing, involves little to no thought, and there is no moving involved. So sue me, I’m lazy.

It isn’t hard to imagine, because of this, that moving is one of my least favorite things in the world. It’s a lot of planning or organization that I lack, being the free-spirited artist that I am (that was some humor there, people, I promise I’m not that much of an pretentious asshole).

However, despite all this, in the last year, I have moved a total of four times in the past year, including the move to and from school, and let me tell you… It’s been exhausting.

I had only a little previous experience with moving prior to the past year, since I moved into the house I was mostly raised in when I was four or five.

Following my parents’ divorce, we moved out of the house last June. It was bittersweet, of course- even though I had a lot of positive memories associated with the house, I also had a lot of negative ones. It was emotional for me. I moved right after I graduated from high school, and it was the summer before I was supposed to move out of the house for the first time to go to Brooklyn for school. We were moving into a much smaller apartment in a suburban area more in town. I hated it.

I’m not saying this to make anyone feel bad, of course. I didn’t think the apartment itself was bad, and it wasn’t as though I had any other suggestions. I knew I was just going to be school in a few months anyway, so it didn’t much matter to me where we were.

I wasn’t a fan of suburban life. I’m still not. All the apartment buildings looked exactly the same, there were strict community guidelines, and all the other residents seemed judgy and all walked their (under 50 lb) dogs excessively.

Between moving out of my childhood home and knowing I wasn’t going to settle in to the new apartment, I felt quite a lot like I didn’t have a home. I don’t mean that in the literal sense, obviously, I wasn’t homeless. I mean that in the more metaphorical one- the place where you feel at home, where you feel safe, the place you want to return to after a long day.

I didn’t have that.

I had a boyfriend who, at the time, made me feel better by telling me that home was him. That he loved me, and that wherever he was was home.

Which was sweet, and I appreciated it a lot, but it did me absolutely no good when I went to school. Not only did I move away from him, but that distance drove a wedge between us that broke us up only four months after going away to school.

After a long time, surprisingly enough, my dorm at school became my home, more due to the people I loved there than the room I was living in itself. We decorated it to our liking, making it as much our space as we could in the nine months we were living there, but it was the late movie nights and game nights and discussions we had there with our friends that made it feel like home. Nine months went by too fast, and then I had to move out. Again.

I had only a few weeks back from the apartment before I would be moving again, this time in with my mom’s boyfriend. I didn’t even unpack all my things from school before I had to start packing again. It was easier, in that way- most of my things were already in neat boxes and I didn’t have a ton in my room anyway. Most of the junk I had accumulated over my 18 years of life was thrown away during the first move, so that made everything easier.

I tried to find some deeper meaning in that, but I couldn’t.

So now I’m on my unmade mattress, writing this a few minutes before when this article is due (because moving really makes you lose track of the day and time), surrounded by unpacked boxes and tape strewn around the room, trying not to think about how I’m going to need to do this again in a few months to go back to school.

I really can’t wait to settle down someplace with someone. I am so sick of moving.