I think that you made the right choice, and I commend you for the courage that it took to make that decision. It probably wasn't easy and I'm proud of you for doing what was best for you. I'm sending you positive thoughts as you continue to work through this.

I'm so proud of you for having the strength to make the decision to move on, and I'm sure it did take strength because no matter how easy these decisions seem on paper, they are always much harder in real life. Even though there may be great big reasons for moving on, there are always small ones which make you want to stick around, but I think you made the right decision. And I hope you find your better friend. You deserve them. <3

I've gone to the same private school since I was four, and this year, I am finally going into high school. A public high school. It's going to be a ginormous change, and I'm so terribly scared. I'm going from an 8th grade glass of 53 to a freshmen class of around 750. I'm not ready, but it is an inevitable change in my life. It's nice to know that I'm moving onto bigger bright things. I am going to have more opportunities to be myself and to see who I am. Thank you ladies so much for starting this movement. You truly inspire me. I hope to be like you women if I ever grow up. You really are my heroes. Glow* on! :D

The first time that I moved, I was about 2 weeks old, so I had no recollection of what went on… the next time that I moved was when I was in first grade. It was in the middle of the school year and my seven year old self was absolutely torn. I had known the friends I made literally my entire life… regardless of the fact that I was seven. We lived in the next place for four years, and then we moved in the middle of sixth grade. About a year later, we moved once more… once again, in the middle of the school year. The only time that we didn’t move in the middle of the school year was when I was in eighth grade. It’s terrifying moving to a new place in the middle of the school year since everyone already has their little groups of friends. You never know whether or not you are going to fit in.

Moving is definitely one of the most difficult forms of moving on. You rarely get to see your friends from the previous place you live. At times, it could also be the best form of moving on.

Melissa, that is exactly what I needed to hear. I'm praying for you, and I hope God sends you amazing friends. :) And remember, I'll always be your friend no matter what :) <3

I am SO proud of you! You saw the big picture and you rose above the fear of breaking up unlike so many people do! Im sure you are still feeling kind of numb from the whole thing, but I can tell that you know things will get better very quickly and that your life can only improve from here! Keep glow*ing!!

i haven't moved physically many times lately. But when I was just a baby, I needed lots of people taking care of me because I was really REALLY early being born. So when I was a baby I moved around a lot and I don't remember it but I know it must have been really tough for my family, but we pulled through. Last time I remember moving was eight years ago. Even though I didn't move that far, I still had to say goodbye to some of my best friends and it was very difficult for me. Soon I plan to move out of the house I'm living in with my family and get my own place. I am nervous but I know it's a great opportunity as well, and I will learn so much living on my own.
As for moving on from memories or relationships, I have done that a lot lately. For example a few years ago, my sister and I were friends with a girl who turned out to be very rude. She would send me hateful messages through Facebook or hide notes in my backpack during school. A while after she started this, she told me she wanted to start over, so I told her that would be nice. But the same thing happened again and again. So this year I decided that I was just going to move on and not even try to be friends with her anymore, because she made me feel awful about myself to the point of severe depression, making myself sick to avoid going to school and seeing her, or I'd just go to my room and cry all afternoon and I considered hurting myself. Usually people think of "breaking up" with friends as a bad or sad thing. Moving on from that situation, however, was the best thing I've ever done and now I am so much less stressed. So if anyone is doing or saying anything that makes you feel bad about yourself, don't even listen to them. Just move on, because I know, and you should all know too, that you are SO much better than what they think. They clearly don't know you. So just be yourself and love who you are!! I love you all!!

I'm so proud of you for getting out of such an awful situation and being better off for it. And if you (or anyone else in a similar situation) ever feels bad for doing something like that, for breaking up with a "friend", just remember that that's not really what you're doing. Breaking up with a true friend is sad, but the girl you "broke up" with wasn't really a friend. That's just not how true friends treat each other. Friends are the people you can go to when other people are treating you poorly, not the people who treat you poorly in the first place. You broke up with a bully. Love you too!

That's really great that you're cutting off your bad relationships. I already said this before but if somebody is making you feel guilty for you are the best thing to do is walk away from that situation. Keep being you! :)

Theatre has been a big part of my life & every show that I do is had to move on from because each show become a part of my family. It is not only the fact that I know I won't see that part of my family but that I don't know what to do with the time that I put in to the show.

As a theater kid myself, I also find it extremely sad when a show ends, for the same reason you do: the cast becomes like my family. I was recently in a production of a show called "13", which had a cast of about 40 teenagers. There was one night where rehearsal wasn't going well because everybody had their mind on something else that was going on in their life. So we had a bit of a glow* session, where we all sat around and listened to eachotheres problems and gave support. That show ending was extremely difficult and sad for everyone, because we had gotten to know eachother so well.
We all went out to a late dinner together at TGI Fridays after the last show, and had a blast being all together for the last time. It made me think of a quote by the great Dr Seuss: "Don't cry because it's over- smile because it happened." though it will be hard, it's more important to treasure the time that you've spent with those people than mourning the end of it.
Keep glow*ing on!
Jackie

I love what you say about keeping the homes that you love with you and leaving the others behind. I completely agree. I also think you can leave parts of your home behind and bring parts with you. I have undergone three pretty big moves in my life, from the east coast of Canada to the west coast of America and then back to the middle of Canada again. And with each move, there were parts of my homes that I wanted to bring with me, and parts I did not. In the same way that when I go back for visits, there are people and places I visit, and people and places I do not. When we move on, we have to ability to move on from only what we need to move on from, and to keep everything else with us, and I think that's just wonderful! :)

The first time I ever moved was when I moved away from everything I knew, including my family at the beginning of this summer and so far, it's been the worst summer ever. I'm more homesick than I ever thought was possible, so much so, that it feels like a physical illness. I had an awful stomach ache for the first two weeks I was here, and cried almost every night.
But I've discovered that since things are harder, I'm appreciating the little things more. I love waking up early to go for a walk or just sitting outside a shop and petting a dog that's been tied up there. I cherish every moment that I'm not sad, and I feel happier because of it. I realized that even when I'm upset and lonely one night, it won't last long and something will come along soon that will make me happy. It's still the hardest thing I've ever done, but I can feel myself getting stronger and there is no feeling quite like that.

Today I reconnected with a girl who was my childhood friend. Just two short years of high school separated us and we stopped talking. I've been thinking a lot about her lately as I felt her absence. I don't have a best friend right now and sometimes it gets hard when I need someone to talk to.

Well today she re-added me on facebook. I accepted and messaged her. I guess she felt the same way. She asked me if I wanted to meet at our corner where we did for years when we were children. I thought it would be this intimate thing where we would just sit and talk one-on-one. But she was with a couple other girls of whom I know, but don't exactly trust with this past two years worth of secrets. I was so disappointed. I still had fun but I realized that I can't linger on what our friendship used to be any longer. We are on different mental levels and I need to find someone who is on the same one as I am to truly connect with. She's caught up in gossip and boys while I try to make conversation about major events that she didn't even know about. There is no common interests. I thought that that might help and give us something to talk about, but she didn't really listen. She didn't seem like she wanted to.

I would like to move on and find a friend. Maybe I just need to decide to trust someone? While I wish to maintain my friendship with my friend, I do not want to get caught up in her drama. Hopefully I'll meet someone this year of whom I can really connect with who doesn't live across the globe and or out of reach. Maybe I won't find someone to connect with until I go off to college.

Thank you for the novel! I'm trying. I find it to be super difficult to put myself out there but I'm getting better at it. I figure the longer it takes to find the right person to connect with the deeper the connection will be. I don't want to settle for someone who half listens and mostly talks about themselves. So far that's all I've found. Someone will come along though, I know it!

I am in almost the exact same position as you except that I am going into high school, not college.
I met this friend of mine when I was 3 years old and moved in next door to her. We had everything in common and were practically sisters. However, I moved across town when I was in 5th grade, and even though I stayed at the same school, we slowly grew apart.
By the time 6th grade rolled along, we weren't really friends anymore, just because we never saw eachother. She was bullied a lotthat year, but she made a lot of new friends that helped her through it. She also became obsessed with boys, and had a new boyfriend almost every week. In 8th grade, we both got into the same choir and play, so we started seeing eachother on a daily basis. I found out that she was into some of the same things I was into, like Glee and StarKid, so we had something to talk about, but it was still always very awkward around her, because she had a lot of other friends from her classes that I didn't know.
We ended up going to the Apocalyptour together, because our moms are good friends and worked it out. That was a great day, because we almost became friends all over again! Obviously, we had an amazing experience, and we have totally bonded over it.
We started talking a lot more at school after that. I thought we were going to be best friends again.
Unfortunately, her obsession with having a boyfriend took over. She and her mom gave me and my mom a ride to NYC (which is pretty close to where I live) when we went to go see a broadway show. They were going to see a show too, and she brought her boyfriend along. Long story short, I ended up shoved against the wall in the backseat next to him, and she was on the other side. She completely ignored me. And I was uncomfortable and miserable.
I still want to be friends with her, but i've realized that there is nothing wrong with letting our friendship die down a bit.
Even with out meeting you, Norah, i know that you are an amazing girl that who will find friends that will accept you and make you feel happy. It just takes a simple "hello" to get a conversation going!
Good luck, and keep glow*ing! :)
Jackie

Norah:
It's not letting me reply to you comment, so I'll just reply to myself.
first off, oops! I guess I interpreted your story differently than what you meant. Either way, making new friends never hurts, so my advice still makes sense, I guess. I'm sorry about that! :)
I'm glad that you do have friends (I was a bit sad, honestly, because I kind of took it to mean that you were lonely). Don't worry about not being BFFS forever with one person. You will find a friend somewhere in the universe who connects with you on a "deeper level" like you say. In the meantime, you seem to have a great theater community that supports you! :)
Again, I'm really sorry about that! Keep glow*ing! <3
Jackie

When I first read this I felt stumped... Ive never had too much trouble moving on. I still have a good relationship with my good friends from high school, I never had homesickness issues when I went to college. Then I realized I'm having trouble moving on RIGHT NOW.

I just finished my summer internship on Friday and there are quite a few people I am going to miss dearly. With moving on from people I have known for a long time... keeping in touch isn't too hard. But I became really good friends with a guy at the office, and part of me is really scared I'm never going to see him again. He is a person who I could talk to for hours about anything. I almost started crying when I said bye to him when I left. I could totally see myself being with someone like him, but he is married and has a kid and he is quite a bit older than I am. He told me that I need to come back so that he could have someone to have meaningful conversations with at work, and my heart almost snapped.

Every so often I remember that even if I do go back, I wont see them for a really long time and I get really sad... so I don't really know how to deal with it yet because this sadness is like three days old... Im about to read your stories and get inspired :)

My iPad stopped me from clarifying...home has always been wherever my family was at the moment...which is why moving out on my own for grad school has been one of the biggest challenges of my life...I dont regret it, especially after the amazing summer I've been privileged to have (and has helped me decide my future) but its still a daily struggle Im so thankful to have glow* to get me through.

Wow, this post could not have been timed better. About a year ago, when I was going into my sophomore year of high school, I moved about 1000 miles away from where I grew up. I immediately sunk into depression and that lasted for almost the whole year. My friends back home had completely stopped talking to me, they had abandoned me at my time of need. I was mad at my parents for making me move, I was mad at my friends back home because they had forgotten about me, and I was mad at myself because I couldn't move on. In time, I found an amazing group of friends, and they were the ones who saved my life. I honestly don't know where I would be today if I hadn't found these friends. They helped me move on, and they helped me turn this new town into my "home."

This summer has helped me tremendously. While all of my friends "new and old" are at camp, it's the new ones who are making an effort to write to me and see how I'm doing. I've been able to finally move on and accept the fact that this is my new home, and these are my new friends.

Thank you Denise for posting this, and thank you to all the glow* girls who have helped me out tremendously over the past few months, and who I consider to be part of my "new" group of friends.

This couldn't have come at a better time!

I just recently moved a few months ago and it was without a doubt the hardest time in my life.
I had moved once before, but I was only four years old so I really didn't even know what was happening.
These months that just passed were so stressful. I thought I was losing my mind! From selling my childhood home that I loved so deeply, to then having to find an apartment before the closing date of the selling on the home... it was too much. The search for a new place was discouraging. Whether the places be decrepit, they don't take dogs, they're too expensive; a million things were going wrong. Once we found a place we had to fix it up and begin the moving process.
I actually became physically sick from all of the mental, emotional and physical stress I was under. I was so sick I almost had to go to the hospital.
Since then I've been able to enjoy the benefits of the new place even though I miss my old home terribly.
Things are cheaper, I live closer to the places I need to be and it's easier to take care of.
I think it's so helpful if you have someone to go through it with you. If my mom and I didn't have each other, there was no way we could do it on our own.
Now I'm able to say that I overcame something so incredibly challenging and I couldn't be prouder.
Don't be discouraged. Pain is temporary, and you will soon be able to smile!
After a storm, birds always sing! :)

this is incredibly interesting to me, because where i am in my life (still a youngin in high school) i feel really secure and satisfied with where i am. i can definitely see how this can be true though, and ill keep this is mind when i go to college next year! "not satisfied? change it!" i love it!

I'm actually moving in 2 weeks for the first time in 8 years. This is the longest I've ever stayed somewhere in my short life of 16 years. I've spent half my life in this place and now, heading into my Junior year of HS, I have to move. I've always been the sort of person who tends to not complain about changes- particularly when I know they have to happen and are fairly unavoidable, like the move that's about to happen. But when given the time and freedom to think and reflect on things and what they will mean to me and about me when they happen, I generally start to feel a sense of foreboding that really starts to mess with my mind-- that comes from tending to try and skate through life so I don't have the moments of foreboding (a decently messed up state of mind, I'm quite aware). I'll take the change, but having those moments can mess my psyche up and make way for some pretty terrible moods, "attitude problems" (as defined by my parents), and uncontrollable lashes out when I really don't mean for there to be.
Of course, there are many reasons why I'm glad to have found the group of people (online no less) where I have a home and am free to rant so I don't end up blowing my top at everyone in the vicinity. Thank you for this post today, DDonz, I just felt that it was for me when I saw the title.

"Moving" can also mean "moving on" from friendships and other relationships. this reminds me of a toxic friendship me and my other friend were in. we were both friends with this girl at school, and she seemed really nice. she didn't have any other friends, and nobody seemed to like her at all, so we decided to invite her to hang out with us at school.
it took us a few months to realize that the girl lied to us all of the time just to get attention and make herself look good. she bragged about her talents ("I can speak seven languages!"), her connections ("My brother is best friends with Usher's cousin, and we went to his house!"), or even tried to bribe us to be her friends ("My brother is going to take me to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter over spring break! Do you want to come?") It got so bad that having a conversation with her was just frustrating because it was obvious she was lying, but she did it anyway! My friend and I talked about it in private, and decided it would be best to let this friendship kind of drift off. I tried to do it gracefully, without hurting the girl's feelings, but she wasn't getting the message. i was really stressed about it, and there were days where i just wanted to disappear. eventually, i started hanging out with other friends at school, so she kind of left me alone. my teacher, who had been observing what was going on, asked me about what happened, and i told her everything. she said that i needed to apologize to the girl and be friends with her again! i was frustrated, and told the teacher that the girl had been lying to me and my other friend, and my teacher realized that i wanted to put the girl down slowly. and that's what i did.
that was one year ago. now, the girl has new friends, who she's very close with, and even though we're still friendly, we aren't close friends, and she doesn't lie to me anymore.
so that's my story about letting go of a harmful friendship. i think i made the right decision in doing that, because it was eating away at my life, and i didn't enjoy going to school.
keep glow*ing everyone!
Jackie

Wow, this post came at a really perfect time for me! I'm starting high school in four weeks from today- I'm terrified. Also a little excited, but mostly terrified. It's gonna be a HUGE change. My eight grade class had 59 kids in it, kids I've known since kindergarten when we were all excited to go to school and learn and make friends and had our hair in pigtails and all that... However, my freshman class will have something like 700 kids and I'll only know something like 15 of them...

I'm really trying to prepare myself for the emotional impact, because as Julia said in her book, with a change like this, you prepare youself for everything BUT the emotional impact of such a change. I'm still nervous. But I know all my friends and fellow glow*bies are gonna help me through it!

Thanks for this post, Denise. And you're not old. :)

Hi Glow*bies,
I have problem with moving on with my life, that stress me A LOT... recently I singed up to casting agency, wanted to be an extra, when I told my mom about going there for casting she kinda laughed.. but I went anyway and basically end up with not telling her about it... I got casting call for a show, had few weeks to tell her about, but I chicked out! the shoot is today, and I'm not sure if they will find replacement.. I don't want to get in trouble with the agency... I'm really stressed by the whole thing and have no one to talked about it...
I'm 20 and obviously should be more brave and defensive about my life and decision that I make! it's my life, right?
still feels not good...
need some Glow* support...

I completely agree. Although it doesn't happen quite so often to me, it is relieving to know that when the time comes to move on and to make a change, I do have the power, and more importantly for me, the strength to do it.

As I have mentioned a couple times on this site, I recently changed jobs. It was a pretty big switch, I went from receptionist to pastry chef. I was worried, when presented with the opportunity, that I would not have the strength to take such a wonderful chance. I knew that I would be pretty completely messing up my old work place by leaving out of nowhere, and I wasn't going to a financially better position, and I knew the hours would be tough, and I's have to start again from scratch with training, and I was really worried. But I did realize that I needed to what was best for me at the time, and that meant not staying at a job that made me miserable. Knowing that I have that strength is slowing helping me build up the strength to keep moving on in the future. I know I'll have to leave this job, because I still want to become a teacher. and I plan on finally moving out. Moving out will probably be even harder, and it will take a lot of strength, as my mum only left a year ago, and I know it's all still pretty hard on my dad, but still, I need to move...on?