I've moved house around 39 times in 27 years

Here's a summary of what happened and what I've learned so far

7 min readAug 27, 2018

The beginning

👧🏻~10 years old: 🏘️ 8 houses | 🇧🇷2 states | 🌆 3 cities

I was 6 years old when my parents divorced. Since then, my mom, brother, and I started a journey of moving around, from one house to another.
It wasn’t my choice at the beginning; I was too kid to decide what I wanted.

Sometimes it wasn't easy to think about the whole process of packing everything, making new friends, adapting to a new city and a new school. Sometimes it was great to leave the place, to imagine how it would be in another house or city and make new friends.

At the age of 9, we changed to 5 different houses within São Paulo, and then we moved to the south of Brazil, Santa Catarina. I fell in love with that place. There's a German settlement in Southern Brazil, so the houses' architecture in the countryside looked like a different country for me.

I liked this novelty and the feeling of a fresh start. We lived there for 9 months and moved to 3 more different houses.

There was always a reason for each home moving: the house was far from the work/school, far from downtown, the rent was expensive, the neighborhood was dangerous, someone else was a problem and also a simple reason: the expectation of a new life in a different place.

Summary from 10 to 15 years old

👧🏻~15 years old: 🏘️ 17 houses| 🇧🇷2 states | 🌆 3 cities

For the sack of simplicity, I’ll skip the details and sum up the experiences from what I remembered from 10 to 15 years old:

Around 10 years old my brother and I went to live with my father for the first time after the divorce;
After less than a year we went to live with my mom again in the countryside: it was around 3 more movings;
I lived for a year with my father again;
At some point, my brother started living with my father, and I was with my mom;
My mom and I went back to the countryside: 3 more different houses;
Back in São Paulo at my grandma’s house;

👧🏻~18 years old: 🏘️ 21 houses | 🇧🇷2 states | 🌆 5 cities

I was about to turn 18 years old with a question: where to settle down and which college major to take? I didn’t know which city I wanted to live in for the next four years — I'm not even sure if I've lived for that long at the same place.

Because of all these movements, I studied in 9 different schools 🎒, and I counted 13 changes between those schools (considering back and forth to the same school).

Some colleagues would call me “the tourist” when seeing me again. It was ok, but that wasn’t the way I wanted to continue at the university. I thought: "If I enjoyed the course and the university, there's no excuse to change."

I decided to go back to the south of Brazil — I liked that place. I choose which course to take and dedicated myself to the studies. I finished university and took my degree at the same place I started. I was happy with that.

In this period I've moved to 2 different cities and 4 houses in these 5 years. All near the university, so I could keep studying.

Living abroad

👩🏻~23 years old: 🏘️ 24 houses | 🇧🇷2 states | 🌆 5 cities | 🇨🇦 🇧🇷 2 countries

After that, I was already working, and I had the opportunity to go to Canada. I decided to embrace it. I focused on improving my English, learn from a different culture, and experience a new way of living.

Since I went to Montreal and it is the second-largest, primarily French-speaking, I studied for 2 months of basic French. It was a combo of learning French with the teacher speaking in English for a few moments.

To earn some money, I did freelance editing videos, cleaning houses, and as a busgirl. I had the chance to meet people from many countries and housemates from different places (Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and South Africa).

I stayed there for 9 months — lived in 3 different houses. Then back to São Paulo. Moved 2 more times.

👩🏻~25 years old: 🏘️ 39 houses | 🇧🇷3 states | 🌆 15 cities | 🇨🇦 🇧🇷🇺🇸 🇳🇱🇵🇹 5 countries

I met Renato when I was back in São Paulo, and soon he became my husband. After 3 months of living in an apartment, we moved in, and we decided to sell almost everything we had, canceled the lease agreement — paid a fine — and quit our jobs.

We traveled for 4 months around the US and Europe with 3 backpacks.

We had no address and no jobs anymore;
We stayed in 8 different places, from hostels to a friend's house.

Details of the places:

🏘️ 39 houses

🇧🇷 3 states: São Paulo, Santa Catarina e Espírito Santo.

🌆 15 cities: São Caetano (São Paulo — BR), Araras (São Paulo — BR), Brusque (Santa Catarina — BR), Itajaí (Santa Catarina — BR), Navegantes (Santa Catarina — BR), Montreal (Quebec — Canada), Katy (Texas — US), Denver (Colorado — US), Coventry (Rhode Island — US), Providence (Rhode Island — US), Dublin (Ireland), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Lisbon (Portugal), Vila Velha (Espírito Santo — BR), São Paulo (SP — BR)

🗺️ 5 countries: 🇧🇷Brazil, 🇨🇦Canada, 🇺🇸US, 🇳🇱Netherland, 🇵🇹Portugal.

Take away

Now we are back in São Paulo, moved in 2 different houses, with no intention to move again, and what I’ve learned from all of this?

✅ To detach from the stuff.

I have to mention that moving from one house to another was always a mess. Most of the rented houses in Brazil doesn't have any furniture. In the south of Brazil, the houses I rented didn’t even have a sink for the kitchen! So we had to pack everything literally. One of the good things was the opportunity to detach from the stuff. Not that I nailed it from the beginning, but today my husband and I share the same small closet, and there’s still some empty space. I’m learning and loving to live with little.

✅ Be aware of my intentions.

When you get used to moving from one place to another, it's easy to see this behavior as an answer for other things and problems. It can be hard to deal with the difficulties and to explore other options instead of leaving.
I started repeating this behavior on many tasks of my life. Now I try to be more aware of the intentions behind my attitude and plans.

"That feeling of restlessness underlying all the unresolved issues you have at home will follow you wherever you go." (Yeo, 2018)

✅ Resilience

Sometimes it was more difficult to be resilient than to move to another country. It's easy to imagine a different life and a better future in a new place. But it's really challenging to build a new habit and to act differently toward the problems. And that's what I'm working on today.

"The problems that are most resistant to solutions are system problems. In a system problem, if you’re part of the system, you’re part of the problem. Your biggest blind spot is yourself." (Gray, 2016)

✅ Change my beliefs

All this process is part of who I became. I feel I can quickly adjust to new challenges in life and embrace changes. I also believe that traveling and seeing new places could be good, give an insight into something, show us a new culture or help to leave the comfort zone. I also don’t think you need to do that to learn and to experience things.

There are interesting people around us, nice places nearby and many books and articles to read. There is also our own routine to be explored.
I never change so much as when I was open to re-questioning my beliefs and seeing things from a different perspective.

"Beliefs are not reality. They are not facts. They are constructions. You construct your beliefs, even though for most people this is an unconscious process. By beliefs, I mean everything you know." (Gray, 2016)

✅ Acceptance and gratefulness

I know I can live in peace and still through a tourist's eyes by changing the way I choose to see the world and react to it. Not that it is easy, and it requires a lot of attention, but it is worth trying. I like this excerpt from the Daily Stoic article about Amor Fati:

"Treating each and every moment — no matter how challenging — as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it, but love it and be better for it. So that like oxygen to a fire, obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential."

In the 39 home movings, I also count the places I stayed when traveling since I had no other place to call home. If I didn’t count these places when I was traveling, it’s a total of 25 places.

Here are some articles I like about this subject:

And this book was delightful to read and gave me many insights:

Liminal Thinking

L'art