I’ve moved 18 times in the last 12 years.

Yes, you read that right. Eighteen times.

Seven of those moves involved a new continent. A complete shift of timezone, culture, and language. I am nostalgic for the days when you were allowed to bring two 50-lb suitcases on flights. That was my moving modus operandi.

No, I wasn’t traveling aimlessly. And no, I wasn’t quitting jobs on a whim and scooting off to someplace else. This was simply the trajectory that my life took after graduating high school and heading off to college. I had the usual mix of summer jobs, internships, study abroad programs, and then post-college jobs and career shifts. I also grew up in Asia, and so my focus during college and after was also on Asia — so that whole “growing up expat” thing was also a contributing factor in my deciding to spend so much time over there.

It was exciting, but exhausting too.

I got pretty good at throwing away stuff. I have a lot of timezones memorized. There are some pretty sweet stamps in my passport and my vaccination history reads like a grocery list of contagious diseases.

I also missed a lot of things — like holidays, weddings, graduations, birthdays, and funerals. That was the less fun part.

Even back in the United States, where I’ve been for four years now, I’ve still moved six times. Some of them were little moves (around Oahu) and some were big (like the puddle jump from Hawaii to Virginia that I made last year). In the end, it’s always the same though — upon arrival, spending the first few days spent unpacking and settling in, and then setting out, not unlike an explorer of old, and beginning to learn about my new home. Embracing the challenge of making new friends, finding the good coffee shops and the best bars, and figuring how to do things, even the simple day-to-day things, all over again.

I’m hoping that my next move will be my last one for a little while, but we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’m continuing to take full advantage of my close proximity to family while I still can. Therein lies the biggest lesson I learned from being a nomad: It took a whole lot of leaving to realize just how important my family is to me.