People move constantly and it seems like there are at least three houses in my neighborhood in Miami that are always for sale. My boyfriend has moved three times, my friends countless times and some of my friends have more than one house either because of divorce or because they are wealthy enough to have another house somewhere else.

I've moved to a different house once in my life and my family has never had another one. I was three and I moved about two streets away. I don't remember moving, nor do I remember the house where I was born. But I remember this house - the house that I have spent 17 years of my life. This is the house where I had my first kiss, where I had my first break up - it is the house of every turning point of my life. In two weeks, I am saying goodbye to this house.

Let's be clear about something first: I hate Miami. I hated growing up here and I am not sorry to leave it. I am sorry and sad to leave this house and the friends who have helped warm it. Since I have arrived back, I have been packing everything and throwing away things I held near and dear to me and that have not moved from their shelves in at least a decade. Suddenly, all of these things, trophies, clothing, shoes, memorabilia, things I had loved, I had to throw away or donate. I have to tell my friends that I do not know when I will see them again. In a way, it feels like I am finally kissing my childhood goodbye.

You may be wondering why I am not including my move to college. College is different and to me, it feels like in college you are never in one place for long. However, you can come back to your childhood home in college and everything will be right as you left it. The kitchen will still smell overwhelmingly of onions and garlic, my bed still waiting for me to leave the usual imprint in it and all my photos of friends decorate the walls from floor to ceiling.

But now, I am not going to be returning to this place ever again. It will belong to someone else. They will fill the kitchen with their own smells and someone else will make an imprint on the bed I used to call mine and decorate the walls with something else, pictures of their cats or something like that.

Now when I go back to my family for Thanksgiving and the Winter holidays, I will be going to California - to a house that is not yet familiar, to a place where I have no friends my age. This house used to belong to someone else who felt exactly the same way as I do about the house we are selling. It was difficult for them to pack up all of the things they loved dear and decided what to throw away and what to keep, but in the end, they let us move into the house and make it our own.

As difficult as it has been for me to decide what is worth to keep for more years to come and what is not, I am happy for whoever decides to take this house. It's a great house to build your memories in. They will raise their family and make it their own, just as mine has started to do with the house in California. The house in Miami will be warmed by their own friends and their walls will be filled with their own memories, just as it was for me. But the new house will have its own firsts and its own memories and soon it will be filled with the smell of garlic and onion and the bed will wait for me to leave the usual imprint in it. Later, I will have my own house where I will raise my family and we will have our firsts and our memories.

Moving is difficult, but it signals a turning point in the lives of those who do it. It signals that you are ready to move on to something new, different, and exciting. You are keeping your memories in a box that will constantly be looked through, but you are starting a new box that will soon be filled with memories that accompanies the new place you may call, "home."