Whether it’s to the next town or across the country, moving away from what you know can be tough. You are pulled out of what you know to be normal, packed up in a cardboard box, and sent to a foreign location. From there you have to re-adjust yourself in order to settle in to where you are more comfortable with this new place. The summer going into my junior year of high school my parents decided to move our family from our cute little town in a suburb outside of Chicago, across the country to another cute suburb outside of Seattle. It was a huge move for me as I was in the middle of high school and being pulled out of everything I’d known and grown up with for 16 years of my life. But once in Washington, I began to realize what kind of things I was gaining from moving out to the Pacific Northwest, and just moving away in general:

1) New Friends

Leaving your old friends behind is probably one of the hardest parts of moving. Knowing you won’t get to see your best friends every day really takes a while to sink in. But when you move, you go to a school and develop friendships with a bunch more people. You gain friends from your classes, your sports teams, and around where you live. I met some of my best friends from moving to Washington.

2) New School

Going to new school is for sure one of the biggest stressors about moving, or at least it was for me. A million questions fly through your brain about what it’s going to be like, what will be different from your old school, will you make friends, where will you sit at lunch on the first day…etc. And I’m not going to lie, it is stressful. It’s also worth it. The first few days, even weeks are weird and you’re unsure of a lot, but eventually you settle in, make some friends, adjust to your classes, and realize that you have a whole new community to be a part of. (Plus you’ll have two high school reunions to go to!)

3) New Cultures

The culture and type of people in the Chicago land area are different to the people in the Seattle area. Seattle is much more well-rounded with different ethnicities of people and cultures. The suburb where I lived in Illinois was pretty singularly cultured so it was really fascinating to get to the pacific northwest and see a variety. It opened my eyes to all the different types of ways people live and all of the people that come here from other countries. I became better immersed and familiar with more cultures.

4) Gave me better opportunities to play college soccer

I knew even when I lived in Illinois that I wanted to go to college on the west coast, and moving here definitely helped with that. Not as many college soccer coaches from the west coast came to the Midwest to watch the players there. If I hadn’t moved to Washington it is definitely safe to say that I would not be playing soccer at the University of Redlands!

5) You get a fresh start

Some people take a fresh start as a chance to change their name, change their look, or change their “persona” as a whole. I took the fresh start as a chance to break out of my shell and get out of my habit of being shy. I told myself that I wasn’t going to make friends if I was shy and quiet. And it worked. I was my true outgoing self and have gained so much more self-confidence and will do things now I would not have done two years ago. Not many people get a chance at a clean slate, but a definite benefit you get from moving is that you do! So use it!

6) Wisdom and experience

The majority of the population can’t say they know what it’s like to uproot your regular life and move to start a new one. Therefore, moving gives you a degree of wisdom that not everyone gets. You experienced having to flip your life around and still carry on. You have gained a new mental and physical skill set from it that can greatly benefit you further on in life. It also gives you the ability to pass on your knowledge to others who may be going through the same thing that you did. And you never know, something you share with them may help them in a way that makes moving not so bad!