The house is so full of cardboard boxes that it’s a maze just to get from your refrigerator to your oven. Bubble wrap is filling every nook and cranny that even you get annoyed every time that you hear one pop. Sweaty strangers that you have to trust to pack up everything you hold dear without breaking it. And if you’re a girl, trying to not to stress about those same sweaty men packing up your “delicates,” because you can’t avoid it. The movers always pack up the clothes.

That’s what I go through almost every four years. The boxes start arriving about a month before moving day, sometimes even earlier. I start losing items I’ve always had at my disposal bit by bit, the necessary things disappearing into a brown box last. Slowly, and at the same time incredibly fast, I pack away memories of one life in preparation of the next one in some brand new location.

Because my dad is military, I don’t just move down the road like most people. My dad gets relocated to a new base, which means we have to move to a new town that’s most likely in a state halfway across the country. I even moved half an ocean away once. But I’ve gained some valuable information because of these moves, such as the different options you have when it comes to how you move, and how you get your stuff back.

Take Hawaii for example. That place is crazy obsessive about what comes onto its shores. I had a turtle before I moved there, but we had to set him free because the islands don’t allow ANY reptiles to be brought over. Since you have to ship everything over, you get to the island a lot faster than your stuff. So you’re stuck for at least a couple days with literally nothing but the clothes on your back. And then those necessities that you packed up last finally arrive in the mail, because you were smart enough to mail those out.

All in all, moving is such a stressful experience, but one that is also completely exciting and new every time you do. But with all the practice I’ve had, I’ve learned how to change the stress to excitement. And honestly, I wouldn’t change how much I moved even if I could. If you want to talk about deadline stress, how to survive a life without TV for three weeks, or even ask how to deal with a 14-hour car or plane ride with your family, I’m the girl to ask. I’ll give you all the information you need, and I can do it just with my most recent moving experience from Florida to Texas, July 18, 2013.

Oh yeah. You also get really good at remembering dates when you move around a lot.