One of the most stressful and chaotic chapters of my life was when I moved to a new state. Not only was this time very difficult, but it was also a time of growth. The whole process of moving took from the the middle of sixth grade until the end of that summer. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day my parents told me and my siblings that we were going to be moving. We went out to eat for dinner after one of my hockey games and my parents said they had something to tell us. I could never had expected what they were about to tell us. They said that we’d be moving to New Jersey that summer because my dad’s job required us to. I didn’t really know what to think at first so I kind of just sat there thinking about it. On the car ride home, it hit me. I broke down into tears as I realized what this actually meant. I had spent everyday living the same life, seeing the same people, doing the same things. It was all I new and I was comfortable with that.

The moving process began with preparing our house to go on the market. This was a lot of work. We had to fix things and organized rooms all fancy so that everything looked nice for potential buyers. My parents began to travel up to New Jersey every weekend they could to look at houses in in areas they liked and that were close to my dads work. We didn't find a house until almost the end of summer, but by that time we were living in our grandparents house in Massachusetts. The day we moved out was quite an emotional experience. The movers came the day before and loaded all of our belongings onto a moving truck. They were at our house until 2:00 A.M. and by that time it was too late to leave. We slept the night in our sleeping bags on the floor in our empty house. The next morning we all took one final walk around the house before getting in the car. It was the first time I’d ever seen my dad cry.

Summer was coming to an end and we would have to go back to NJ eventually before school started. The house we purchased was extremely old and basically the entire property needed to be updated. We couldn’t live in the house while some of the more major projects were going on so we lived out of a Residents Inn for about three months. It was miserable. Hotel food gets old much quicker than you might think and the tiny living spaces made pretty much everything difficult. We learned to manage though and for a while that was our home.

Moving to a completely new place comes with all sorts of challenges. Obviously the difficulties with moving from one house to another are challenging, but there are many others too. Friends being one of the major one. I had to leave my closest friends behind; the ones I had known forever and I would probably never see them again. I would have to make all new friends in a new town with a new school and new sports teams. Easier said than done. Not only did school concern me, but also my parents. After my brother, sister, and I were all diagnosed with dyslexia at young ages, my mom took up the challenge of homeschooling us through preschool. After a little while this was to great a challenge so we set out in search of another solution. My brother and sister attended a private school for learning differences and I went to the local elementary school because my dyslexia is not as severe. Turns out I still needed help though. So all three of us went to school together where we all received fantastic help. Now that we were in New Jersey though, there were no schools like that in our area so we faced the potential challenge of going to the public schools. Thankfully the schools were very understanding and supportive so there was nothing to worry about at all. Growing up going from homeschool then from one elementary school to another then transferring into the middle school in NJ for two years before moving on to high school was not easy. Finding friends that I liked and could relate with was not easy either, but whenever I found myself feeling weak or down, I found rest and assurance in the fact that I always had my family with me through everything and that they support me and each other no matter what.

Throughout this journey I found myself in many new and sometimes uncomfortable situations. Facing all the challenges that came with moving was easy, but I knew I had something that was with me and constant the whole time. It was my family and the sense of home when I was with them. I didn’t matter if we were in our house in Maryland, or our grandparents house in Massachusetts, or a hotel, or our new home in NJ, home was always wherever family was. Regardless of where we lived and the challenges we faced, home was constant and revolved around the family unit, not the building we were in.