I have moved around quite a lot in my 16-year life. I may not have moved my entire life, but I know for a fact that I have moved around more the average people do.

Many people, after finding out how many times I have moved always tell me how lucky I am because of all the different places I lived in. Don’t get me wrong, I am very lucky, luckier than I ever thought I could ever be. But while being lucky, I was also unlucky. Moving, like everything else, has its pros and cons. Here are the cons on from my personal view and experience:

Moving can be harder than people imagine.

When you are little, friendships don’t matter, but not the same way they do once you are older. When I was three, I did not care whom I played with as long as I had someone to play with. There was no real emotional attachment so it was easy to get over your friends and other relationships when little. But once older, when I was ten and older, and started understanding relationships better, it got much harder to leave one place. You have to detach yourself from these relations, and start new relationships with other people.

Every move meant starting and building a new life.

Every move means a new country (sometimes, if moving internationally), a new city, a new house, a new school, new friends, a completely new entire life.

When moving internationally and you don’t know the language, things get very complicated. You can’t get the most basic message across and you get frustrated very quickly.

When you forget to book a day for a moving company to come and move your belongings because you’ve been so busy and you only have three days to move, things get more completed than not knowing the language. You have to pack your whole house in such a small time by yourself with the boxes you bought yourself and find a way to move the big and heavy furniture out of your house and through your front door. The only transportation you have to move your belongings is your tiny van. Doing it under the summer’s sun is even worse.

Once you have arrived at your destination with the company, you have to make sure that all boxes are there, all your belongings have arrived correctly and make sure that nothing is broken so that you can be reimbursed by the company. You also have to make sure that nothing has been stolen at the customs if you are moving internationally. Counting the boxes and making sure they’re all there is tedious work but the big part is unpacking and cleaning. I promise that taking furniture apart is a lot easier than putting it back together. You need to start by the furniture so that you can then put into the furniture the rest of your belongings. You need to take the boxes afterward and stack them somewhere while you wait for the garbage trucks to pass.

Moving is not exactly glamorous. It is not at all like in the movies where the family arrives in their new home and everything is already there and installed.

Moving is a long process where everything moves and changes very quickly and you can find yourself in multiple, different situations in such a short amount of time.

It’s a great experience, but it should only happen if necessary and only a few times in your life (unless you really like moving and it’s your thing). Moving has brought me many things, both positive and negative and I would never go back on the decision of moving even if at the time I wanted to.

Moving is a very painful process, both physically and emotionally, but you simply need to tell yourself that it will be over soon and think of the positive things that might or will come out of this move.

Focus on the positive aspects of life.