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I have been moving every year or so since the 6th grade, and seeing my parents only a few days of the year. One year I found myself in Manhattan, and then suddenly in a rural northern Idaho farm, in a town with less than 4000 people in 50 miles because my parents had to travel for long periods of time, and couldn’t take me. I had to learn things that a normal kid my age wouldn’t think of, such as buying and making my own food, to paying my utility bills. Why I had to do all this was very hard to understand for the 12-15 year old me, after I turned 16 I finally got used to it, but always had a pessimistic view on the town or city I was currently living in. Sometimes in angst to my parents I would leave the country for a few months with my friends, during the times my parents were in the US and could see me. However, I realized that the reason they didn’t say anything before was because they wanted me to experience being completely independent, the freedom and the difficult reality of life that comes along with it, and these changes have helped me become more understanding of myself, and other people and their respective cultures. I couldn’t see it back then, but living in different states and countries had helped learn things that I would have never learned if I had just stayed in NYC.