By: Isabella Caswell
I strongly bond with the spaces I live in, and it strains me to let go of the places I settle into time and time again.
Cardboard boxes, packing tape, incessant cleaning and organization, and getting rid of the useless crap hiding in the depths of a closet you forgot about — all the things that make moving unbearable. As a homebody, leaving a space I have grown comfortable with aches.
I have lived in seven different houses and three apartments in my first 21 years of life. My family of disorganized procrastinators moved six times before I turned 18.
Children who move a lot are more likely to experience problems at school, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Moves are also often accompanied by divorce, loss of financial income or a need to change schools.
I was lucky enough to switch schools only once. I was in fifth grade, and I moved from Maplewood to Stillwater. For the first couple of months at this new school, I sat alone at lunch and on the swings at recess.
I did not know how to make new friends.
At the same time, my parents were getting a divorce. So much was going on at once. The social part of my brain, centered in the amygdala, was splintered.
Although, I have found the older I get, the harder it gets to move. When I moved out of the house I lived in during high school, I was devastated. Now, I am about to move out of my college apartment of three years.
I feel an immense amount of dread. No one is ever ready to move out of their favorite place.