Picture this: The moving boxes were all unloaded from the moving truck into your brand-new room. The sun beating down your back as you carry your lost box into the house you were about to start calling "home". Nerves, sadness, and excitement all running through you as you realize you have to create a new life in a new place with knowing no one. How do you handle it?

I consider myself an expert on this topic. I may only be nineteen, but I have moved twenty times and gone to sixteen schools, and before you ask, no I am not in a military family. The moves didn't really start affecting me until middle school but since then I have moved what feels like 100 times, making friends then leaving, getting a boyfriend then breaking up because who wants a long distance in high school? Even though I have met and know hundreds (if not thousands) of people from over the years I really only have four people who really know me. Let me tell you, being the new kid, every year isn't as fun as some people see it. My senior year I moved to Texas from California, I spent the first week eating lunch by myself in the cafeteria (which wasn't a thing in California) and spent the first hour after school sobbing in my car because I was half-way across the country from my friends and not making friends fast enough. Luckily, since I have moved so many times it only took me a week to make friends and start hanging out with people, but still they didn't know me, not the real me. It took me until graduating to realize that Texas me was different from California me, which is okay but since then I've had to find myself again and again not knowing or believing who I really was.

The reality of moving when you don't want to it so physically and emotionally exhausting that I wouldn't wish it on anyone who does not want it. Everyone wants stability in their life, whether they'll admit it or not. Friendships and relationships are supposed to be that stability at the minimum. My reality, I make friends and have to pack my stuff up 12 months later through the tears and the want to stay. College, it's been the same, I have transferred twice (this time for medical reasons) and I have to wonder if it has anything to do with the fact I moved so much as a kid/teenager (subconsciously) but I am ready to plant my feet and find my new home in Florida. The moral of this story do not assume that moving does not have an impact on a person, their entire life has changed and you don't know how many times they've been unplanted from a place they loved. Be kind to everyone, be friends with whoever you want, value your relationships and friendships and most importantly, do not take stability for granted.