Moving experiences?

[Sleepy Sol]

Just wanted to ask about a topic regarding an experience I'm about to have in life. Was wondering what sort of moving (as in, moving to a new home/geographical location/planet/etc.) experiences people here at The Escapist have had.

Basically, I'm moving to a new location for the first time in my life, from Mississippi to Washington state. So I'm a bit interested in seeing how other people have handled experiences like this, I suppose. Was it easier to establish yourself at your new home or was it more difficult? To be fairly honest, I'm unsure about moving there due to the whole losing any friend connections and whatnot (admittedly this is temporary due to my situation), but I'm also sure I could establish some friendships there as well if I just make an attempt at doing so. Though I will still be attending college in Mississippi due to not having a desire to transfer, so I'm effectively only living in Washington for a large part of the summer.

Still, while I guess this sort of arrangement might be better called an "extended vacation", it's a wholly new experience for me, soooo...yeah.

Thanks for your time, guys.

 

[Mr Fixit]

I have lived all over the U.S., but it was mostly before I was 3 years old. My family was constantly moving. First time I remember moving was when I was about 8. My family was moving from Florida to the middle of fucking nowhere Tennessee. I was not happy about it at all, but I was very young & eventually got over it. Haven't moved since, but I would if I could, I still kinda hate it here. The area itself is quite nice, but the locals attitude about everything just annoys me & has since I was a child.

I've helped a couple friends move this past year, but just across town basically.

 

[seventy two]

If you don't mind me asking, where in Washington?

Moved to Washington, when I was 7, at that point I lost some friends but at that age it is pretty quick to gain new ones. At the beginning of this year I moved to Boise(ID) for college, I chose to live in the dorms for the first school year and I think that helped in establishing friendships. Since the school year is over I just moved into an apartment and that was painless.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Well, I've only moved twice in my life: once from an apartment to an attached home and then to detached single family home.

Both moves didn't necessarily impact me that much (hell, for the longest, I didn't even realize that I had moved in the first place), as I was very young the first time I moved and I was already in college when I moved again. It also helped that I was just moving to another part of the city instead of somewhere completely new.

Although now I fell like moving out on my own sometime soon. I'm hoping to move towards somewhere that's not too far from the beach and that I'm familiar with.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I'm probably the worst person to ask about this sort of thing. I can now say that I have lived longer in Japan(at 7 years) than I have any other one town. I tend not to make many friends because I'm accustomed to losing them so quickly, though I usually make one or two at any given location.

The thing about it is that you get what you put in. Unless you're going to be in a school or some other situation that forces other people's presence upon you on a regular basis, you have to go out and find people with similar interests if you want to make any friends. I'm kind of a recluse, so I rarely do that.

One thing I did that eases the situation is join an organization I was interested in that has members all over the world. What group is that, you ask? The Society for Creative Anachronisms. It's sort of a medieval research group that learns by trying to recreate arts and sciences that were used back then. Also, there's heavy weapons fighting(and rapier fighting, though some Kingdoms look down on that, I hear). The cool thing is that the sort of people that get into that sort of thing also tend to be interested in other geek activities such as tabletop roleplaying. You can usually find an SCA group nearby without any problems, especially if you are in the States.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

When I was younger my family moved a lot around the country due to my father's job. We moved every two to four years. The problem was that most of the time we were moving to small towns near the border of my country, and in one case a town with less than 200 people living in it. This made me feel alone, and I grew up to be a bit shy (though this changed in the last few years). Sometimes I had good experiences and fun, others not (for example that year when I was beaten on daily basis at a rural school because I was too "white").
Overall I won't say it was great, but I learned a lot from it.

 

[Kricketz]

I remember relocating to Florida for an internship for about about 6 or 7 months before graduating. This was back in 2010 so I guess it's still pretty recent. Anyway, I live on the West Coast and this was the first time I was truly on my own and far away from my immediate friends/family, so I was pretty nervous. I was also supposed to be sharing my apartment with a complete stranger who was also an intern. I tend to get along with most people I meet so this didn't bother me too much. Turns out there were quite a few of us interns and a lot of them were feeling the same way I did.

Anyway, long story short, I had a blast. Made a lot of new friends, visited a lot of interesting and cool places, all the while learning that I'm more than capable of being able to take care of myself living off my own means. Actually, had a few tearful goodbyes when it was time to go back home. I still talk to my suite mate to this day and I'm also friends with him on Xbox Live.

It's important to have an open mind and to be open and willing to talk and get to know new people. When you move somewhere new, you have a chance to reinvent yourself. I just focused on staying positive and enjoying myself. It was a great experience and I loved it.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I actually just moved from Odessa TX to Houston about three months ago. At least I think it was three, I don't have a very good sense of time. I was a bit apprehensive at first, and my first night here was difficult but it's gotten better.

Sure, I had to leave behind my brother, my dog and my girlfriend, but that's ok. I don't feel particularly lonely. In fact, after cutting ties with so many people I actually started to realize how little they contributed to my life. I honestly don't even miss any of my friends or roommates. It's a nice area, nothing like I'm used to. Most of the houses are two story and there's very little crime here. I think I like it quite a bit. I have enough to keep me busy, but I haven't really plugged myself into the social scene here yet. I don't feel a very strong urge too.

I've taken a job as a contractor's apprentice, so I'm allowed enough free time to pursue my interests. I usually don't like change at all, but it seems it can actually be a positive experience.

 

[DanielBrown]

Lived in Stockholm, Sweden all my life. First in a location called Täby, in a huge apartment, when I was a baby. After unfortunate circumstances we had to move. Moved back to my mom's old neighborhood and that's where I spent my conscious life up to the age of 17. Then we moved ~300 meters down the road to some new houses and that's where I still live.
Moving here was awesome. The apartment is a lot bigger than the old one and the neighborhood is a lot better. Felt like moving from a homeless shelter to a palace tbh.

I got plans to move all the way to the most southern tip of Sweden in the end of June however. Moving in with my sister, who lives there, for a month to try and find a job. The situation in Stockholm is almost impossible at the moment and after eight months of job hunting I've given up on this city.
Don't really have any friends left here, so moving doesn't bother me(I'll miss my cat though :C). I'm a bit uncertain on how I'll feel from moving to the biggest town in Sweden, where I've spent all my life, to a shitty small town in the middle of nowhere though. On the plus side my social life will be a bit busier as I'll meet a lot of my sisters friends and I know a few people through the internet who live fairly close by, who I might visit.

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm actually going to be moving in a few days, as it happens, and I expect the experience to be absolutely dreadful.

Firstly, I'm not really sure if the place we're moving to is smaller than our current place or not because the space is distributed quite differently in each of the rooms, but I don't like all of the heavy moving that comes with needing to pack up desks and entertainment centers and beds and then try to manhandle them down stairs and out of doorways. It's a pain, it always has been a pain, and it always will be a pain until such a time as they design stairwells and doorways that are actually large enough to accommodate those damn things.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I'm in the process of trying to get a bunch of paperwork done so I can go to college in Canada. Leaving aside the fact that that means moving again in another few months if everything comes through, I expect that for the next week or two I'll be without internet and thus have no convenient way of actually contacting all of the places I really should be keeping in contact with.

Then there are just the small inconveniences of unpacking and organizing everything, changing your post address, actually setting up the new internet connections, hoping you've got electricity, blah blah blah. Yeah, I'm not particularly fond of moving. Once I get settled in somewhere, I'm not all that motivated to pack up and move out. It's all fine and dandy once the new place has been settled down, but until then I'm a Grumpy Gus.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

Oh boy, moving.
I've lived in 3 continents, 5 countries, and about a dozen apartments/houses. We're moving again next month, but only to a new apartment in the same city.
Getting accustomed to the switch depends on the distance. In your case, It's wouldn't be as severe as, say, Hungary to China. No culture shock or language barrier, so that helps, as does staying in the same country. You say you're only going to be there for the summer, so there is no danger of losing any friends/etc. back home. The issue with such a stay of that length is you'll be leaving around the time or just after you settled in, and you'll have to leave behind the friends you've made.
Even though, as you say, this is the first time you're ever moving, I doubt you'll be faced with many difficulties.

There are several upsides to having moved around a lot, but having lived in so many places for so short times at my age (I only just turned 17) have ruined any chance of building long-term, lasting friendships/relationships. It is difficult leaving your whole life behind every 3-4 years to essentially start a new one.

 

[Frezzato]

Have you ever traveled before via airline or bus? What's your living situation going to be like? And will you be taking a laptop or phone?

 

[MysticSlayer]

The first time I moved was from Florida to Michigan when I was twelve. At that age, I was a little more excited about moving than I would eventually become. It helped that I knew it would be the first time I saw snow in my life, considering it occurred in winter.

The second "move" occurred about five years later when my family moved to a small town in Iowa that was along the Mississippi River. I wasn't particularly thrilled about that move, as by that point I began to fully grasp the weight of leaving friends that I'd had for years. Oddly, though, circumstances only kept us in Iowa for a few months before we went back to Michigan.

However, the third move came only a few months later when my dad got a job in Rhode Island. Other life issues completely overshadowed the move, though, so I don't have much to say about it.

My fourth move came a year after moving to Rhode Island, and it was down to Virginia, which coincidentally almost became the first place I moved to well before the move to Michigan. This one was probably the worst. By that point, I was starting to tire of the traveling, and my dad's desire to transfer to the job down in Virginia was due to rather stupid motivations, but I won't go into those. Needless to say, it was still a stressful move, but after a few weeks in Virginia, and I was mostly able to handle it, even if I was disappointed at leaving New England before fully experiencing the area.

Still, about a year after moving to Virginia, my dad was forced to transfer to Florida, but by that point, I actually had a say in when I moved, and I basically said no way. I chose to stay in Virginia for another year and a half, but that was a little too long, especially after I visited my family at their new home in Florida and remembered how nice the state could be. I ended up moving there after finishing community college.

My most recent move came about a year ago, but that was just to another city. I wasn't too thrilled about this last one, as I wasn't too thrilled about the new city, but at least I spend most of my time at a university in another city.

Overall, a couple pieces of advice I would give are:
1. Get out into the new community and experience it. Even if you're only there in the summer, there's still plenty of time to enjoy whatever the area has to offer. You could even try making a few friends that you can hang out with when you are there. Who knows, you may even find yourself in the position I was in when my family moved to Florida while I was attending college in Virginia and actually want to move there.

2. Find ways to relieve stress. Exercise is a good way, and having some music to listen to when stressed can also help. Moving is stressful, and if you can't find a way to relieve that stress, it can only make the process worse. Of course, it might not be as bad for you given that you are only going there during the summer, but it is still something to keep in mind.

 

[shootthebandit]

I move quite a lot and I dont mind it. I dont have a problem meeting new people and I dont mind the move itself (shove everything into a big van)

Its the paperwork that so stressful. You need to change your address on EVERYTHING and youll need to set up all your bills and stuff at your new place. Its a nightmare