When I first visited Texas in 2012, I was completely oblivious to the fact that my mom was scoping out the area under the pretense of taking us on a spring break vacation.

I actually kind of liked it: I liked the fact that Austin was an exceptionally prettier city than Miami; I liked that not every inch of land was covered with concrete and various other traces of human entanglement; and I especially liked that I was able to cross “visit Texas” off my bucket list.

Fast-forward seven months to my sophomore year. I went on with my life in an almost cyclical haze: school, clubs, homework, repeat. And on a day as pointedly unremarkable as the ones before it, my mom said four words I never thought I’d hear in one sentence: “We’re moving to Texas.”

Suddenly, it was like every single plan, every “we should [insert activity here] once we’re seniors,” disappeared into the air along with any sense of feeling in my body.

I was devastated. Yet strangely enough, I was excited, too.

I still had to say goodbye to my friends (an occasion I successfully evaded until I [quite literally] spelled it out for my friends with a pile of grease-drenched fries), condense seven years of life into two comparatively tiny boxes, and leave behind the familiarity of the humid Floridian air and the vibrancy among it.

But there was just something about starting over and allowing myself a breath of fresh (and somehow mysterious) air that I had so lacked in my otherwise monotonous life that made moving seem less like an aggravation and more like an adventure.

And three months later, here I am. I still miss my old friends in overwhelming bouts of homesickness — but I have new friends here that make me feel as though I never left home in the first place. I’m discovering both foreign and exciting things about my surroundings (like how movie-esque of a high school McNeil is and how insanely delicious milkshakes from Sonic are), and I’m actually looking forward to the rest of my year here.

Point being? Whether moving halfway across the country, or moving 30 minutes away for college, you should always be open to change. Once you do that, you open up to the world and, eventually, to yourself.