Moving Doesn't Always Suck

There has to be some statistic that says May is the moving-est month of the year, right? College students and graduates, grad students are moving on in May. My apartment lease in Minneapolis went from May to May and I moved here in May. I guess then June and August would come in close behind.

Over the last few months, we've had good friends moving to and from Des Moines. Which is awesome and sad. Awesome to have old friends from other places enter our daily life here, sad because other friends are leaving for new adventures...which is totally awesome for them.

Being the leaver is easier than being the leavee, and I have almost always been the leaver. Places I have lived: Bozeman, MT (born)>Manlius, NY>Penacook, NH (elementary school)>Sutton, MA (junior high and high school)>Bozeman, MT (first two years of college)>Solon, IA (family move while I was still in college)>Iowa City, IA (last two years of college, needed that journalism degree)>Minneapolis, MN>Des Moines, IA.

Moving made me the person I am and taught me to rely on myself. When you move somewhere new, you can't cling to the identity you created in that previous place because that situation no longer exists. You have to make new friends, find a new place to hang your hat and shop for bargain clothes. You have to measure who you are and what you deem important against the norms in the your new home. Moving to different parts of the country, East Coast to Mountain Town, Mountain Town to Midwest, especially opened my eyes to this notion.

Every place I have lived has fortified the person I am. It has cemented certain personal beliefs and blown other perceptions out of the water. It has made me more accepting and aware of the struggles life presents.

Moving has taught me there is no one way to live a good life, and that being happy with who you are is the key to happiness. I stopped comparing myself to people because nobody has lived my life, so there is no way our lives can be held up for examining.

If I had never moved, I would have never met all of the awesome people I've been privileged to call my friend. I would not have met my awesome husband or had the excellent experiences of fall in New England, August in Montana, college football in Iowa City and negative degree winters in the Twin Cities, which are actually quite beautiful.

I promise, moving doesn't always suck. Just the part in the beginning when you don't know which way is up. That part does suck. But, if you embrace it, you will get so much more back than you ever thought possible.