I’ve moved several times before, but this one hurts the most.

When I was 10, my best friend in the world gave me a rock from his backyard and told me to take it with me to California. The marbled white stone sat on my nightstand for years, reminding me of where I came from and who I was missing.

When I was 18, I moved, as a lot of teenagers do, to pursue my education at a 4-year university. I left my dearest high school friends, a boy I loved but knew I could never be with, and a place I had called home for the past 8 years. It took me a year to appreciate this new place with new people and the value of my education.

When 4 years was up, I moved again, this time across the country. My roommate and I shared a U-Haul and road-tripped across America with the few belongings we had as broke 20-something’s searching for our purpose. Saying goodbye to her was like ripping off my own skin—so intertwined we had become in each other’s lives during those 4 years of school. We became adults together.

But, so it was I went to grad school in North Carolina, and she went up North for a job. Compared to the 4 years of undergrad, my 2 years spent earning my Master’s degree felt like nothing at all. I transformed during those years in a way I hadn’t ever experienced before—my views on relationships, religion, adulthood, and mental health were pushed like they never had been before. Burnt out from the stress, I left North Carolina gladly, ready for a new place to reset.

Ah, here we are in the present. It’s been 4 and a half years since I moved to the UK, and my heart aches as I think about leaving. These moves of the past have shown me that I can do it. I always manage to leave the people and places that I grow attached to and find meaning and safety some place else. Each new place is a chance for new experiences, new friends and opportunities, and I’m grateful that I get to live this life of adventure.

But this may be the hardest move yet. I haven’t lived in a place this long since I was in high school, and I’ve grown more attached to the life I have here. The slow pace of life on the Scottish coast makes it easy to balance life and work, even as the work of a PhD student is relentlessly demanding. My Scottish partner of the past 3.5 years has also helped me to learn the ins and outs of Scottish culture. I feel connected to the land in a way my peers have not had the opportunity to. I’ve been up and down the east and west coasts of Scotland, travelled around in circles in the middle, and spent days in the big cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen.

But the next thing is graduation, getting a job, and leaving this country with pieces of my heart left in the North Sea. Maybe I’ll stay in the UK, move down South to teach at a nice university in England. Maybe I’ll return to the U.S. and attempt to catch up on the cultural and political happenings that I’ve been fortunate enough to miss these last few years.

I’ve said goodbye so many times, and I hate to do it again. I’ve fallen in love over and over again not just with the places I’ve lived in, but with the versions of myself that these places have elicited. To Scotland, you have made me a doctor. You have inflamed my heart with a passion for wild terrains and slow living. You taught me to breathe again when my anxiety and depression from grad school made me think I might die. You taught me to live and love again.

This won’t be the end. I know I’ll be back soon.