Finding luck in change

I am extremely lucky that I have had to pack up my entire house and move every two years throughout my childhood. Not many people view this as “lucky,” and there have been many occasions where people have regarded this experience sympathetically, including my own mother. My father, however, whose ever-changing career has been the reason for each of these moves, has never sympathized with me over it, so I have learned to do the same. As I consistently navigated new schools, states and friendships, I learned that luck isn’t about ease, but rather about finding growth in challenges.

The constant moves were extremely upsetting at first. I would spend two years making myself comfortable, finding new friends and settling into a new house and school — then one random day, I would be told to start packing. Over time, these “random” days became something to expect whenever I hit the two year mark in a new town, and with each move, I learned to appreciate my time more in each place.

One of my hardest moves was from South Dakota to New York. It happened in the middle of my third grade year, when I had not yet realized that these moves would continue. I thought the friends that I had made would be around forever. I exchanged wallet-sized school photos with addresses scribbled on the back with my friends, and we promised to never stop writing letters to each other. By the time I had unpacked my boxes into my new New York bedroom, the letters had already slowed, and I realized how fleeting friendships can be.

My friends didn’t stick, but I got to choose a new color to paint my bedroom. I would have to relearn concepts at each new school in every new state, but at least my sewing machine would always be waiting for me when I got home — wherever that was. The weather patterns changed, but I found a best friend in my brother. There were plenty of losses, but I learned to find comfort in the little things that stayed the same.

The one thing that stuck with me through each town was my hobbies. No matter where I lived, I knew I could still lay in bed with a book, still go on a run, still sew a new makeup bag or pajama set. When I moved to Pennsylvania at the start of seventh grade, my mom signed me up for the middle school cross country team. Practice started two weeks before school did, so on my first day, I already had a group of friends to eat lunch with and to accompany me to unfamiliar classes. I immediately felt like I belonged, due completely to the hobby of running that I shared with 10 other girls.

My hobbies weren’t just a comfort to me — they were a conversation starter with others. They became a bridge to new relationships and showed me how to be confident in what I love. I found it easy to make friends with people who shared similar interests, and regardless of the town I lived in, I discovered a close friend in a sewing class or on a cross country team. I was content with this all through grade school, actively becoming friends with people I considered to be almost clones of myself.

My hobbies helped me to achieve a feeling of stability, but they also helped connect me with others, something that became essential when I was planning my big move to college. This past summer, though, I had a lot of time to reflect on how limiting relationships that blossomed primarily from hobbies tend to be. Having friends who are similar to me is nice, but it ostracized me from relationships with incredible people who were not like me at all. I found too much comfort in familiarity, in the friends that I knew I could always make. 

I was lucky to easily make friends through the hobbies I was comfortable with, but I knew that I had to learn to branch out in college. I was lucky to have people who wanted to participate in the same events as me, but this comfort in familiarity prevented me from meeting new people at said events. I knew I had to go to a college that wasn’t just high school 2.0, but this time, I wanted to find people who I could learn from, not just share interests with. I was very lucky, but I had so many more changes ahead of me. 

Starting college felt like yet another uprooting in my life, a familiar feeling from my childhood. But this time, it wasn’t just about change. It was about growth. Moving to a new place of my own accord — rather than my father’s — helped me to reflect on my past moves and understand how much I have grown in the background of my life. I know now that I have so much more time to keep growing on my own. My story is an extreme version of something that every college student has faced: learning to adapt when things change. Life will change, and so will we, and we are so lucky to experience that.

I moved into Couzens Hall one day before my roommate, whom I met on Instagram. She played hockey, soccer and lacrosse. She was from Maine. We had very little in common. This was a good thing. I got lucky.

There was not a single person on the floor of my dorm who moved to Ann Arbor from Pennsylvania, like me. I got lucky.

Every person I met during the first week had a different prospective major. I got lucky.

I knew no one. I had so much to learn. I got so lucky.

My closest friend is in the College of Engineering whereas I am in the School of Education. She has two sisters; I have one brother. She is from Maine; I am from Pennsylvania. Her hobbies could not be more different than mine. She lives two doors down from me. I am so lucky.

The best friendships aren’t always the easiest ones. People don’t need to be identical to belong together. One of my favorite memories from the first weeks of school was making a birthday cake for a boy who lived in the room next to mine. We were not particularly close, but I recognized how hard it would be to experience your first birthday away from your family and the people you hold closest. Everyone on my floor sat in the hallway and sang and ate cake while we compared our hometown grocery stores. I realized that even though we all came from incredibly different backgrounds, we all shared the same nervous excitement about being somewhere new. New beginnings are so important — not just for me, but for everyone. 

It is so easy to feel like you are completely out of place when you experience something new. It is so easy to avoid challenging yourself out of fear of an uncomfortable outcome. It is so easy to seek comfort in familiar faces when in a sea of thousands of people. But living easy is not always the best way to live. Branching out is difficult, but it is necessary. Trying new things can be scary, but they will bring you so much farther. It’s hard to find luck in a situation that you don’t feel lucky to be in, but it’s easy to find if you have the right mindset. 

I am so lucky to be surrounded by people from all over the world. I am so lucky to be able to start somewhere new and learn what I am interested in. I am so lucky to make friends who are so different from me. If you tweak your perspective to view uncomfortable situations as ones that you are lucky enough to be a part of, you will ultimately find your place. 

If there is one thing that my constant moving has taught me, it’s that change is inevitable, but how you view that change makes all the difference. College is a chance to branch out, meet people you never thought you’d connect with and discover new parts of yourself that might have been hidden due to comfort in sameness. I am lucky to be able to embrace the unexpected. I am lucky to be faced with challenges. I am so lucky.

Statement Contributor Lola Post can be reached at lolapost@umich.edu.

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