After nearly three and a half years in the same apartment, my daughter and I felt very much at home. Thirty-nine months may not sound like a long time, but for someone who has moved some thirty times in her life—and spent much of her adult life living overseas—it felt, if not permanent, at least quite comfortable. I expected we would remain there for at least another year before heading abroad again.

Then my landlord decided to sell. Try as I might, there would be no extension. We would have to move.

At first, I viewed it as a major inconvenience. Why move when I was perfectly happy where I was? We had lucked out finding this apartment after returning from Guinea – an amazing location right above a metro station, my daughter C’s bus stop just across the street, the building smack dab in the center of busy, happening Ballston. But after thirty-nine months in one place, part of me was actually itching for a change. I have spent much of my adult life moving. New places, new neighborhoods, new views out the window—they have a way of shaking up your routine and reminding you to see things a little differently. Our apartment had become a haven after Guinea; we have had many amazing experiences while living there. And yet, we had some hard times too. With C heading to high school and some transitions at work, maybe it was time for a new residence? Well, we had no choice.

Still, this move would be different.

I have moved so many times over the course of my life. Yet this spring, I learned there is a difference between moving and being moved.

That may sound strange coming from someone in the Foreign Service. For the past fifteen years, whenever I received orders for a new assignment, the U.S. government hired the movers. Then the movers packed our belongings, loaded the truck (or container), transported everything, and delivered it to our next home. I do not even have to find a place to live. The Embassy or Consulate provides the housing – like it or not, that is our home. It had been a long time since I had moved myself — and those were the days when a move only involved packing up what I could fit into my suitcases or a car.

I had certainly been moved many times.

I had just never really arranged a move myself.

As it turns out, there is a lot to learn.

First, I needed to find a new place. Arlington is one of the most expensive counties in the U.S. My rent was by no means cheap, but I had locked in a good rate for over three years. Still, as a single parent with one income, rental prices here still kind of blow my mind. But with C getting into a STEM school and wanting to stay close to friends, I had a smaller area to search in. After several months of searching and more than a few apartment tours, I found the right place for us. It was a relief to sign those papers.

I felt very proud of myself for hiring a small business operation to move my belongings. I found them one day at the loading dock, loading the belongings of someone moving out of my old building onto one of their trucks. The owner was on site, also moving, and I got his contact details and had him pop up to my apartment to get a lay of the land. He gave me cost and time estimates; I signed the contract and paid the deposit.

The night before the movers were to arrive, the owner texted me to ask if I was ready. Sure, I said, as ready as I will ever be. Spoiler alert: I was not ready.

OK. But then, honestly, I am never ready. I make lists of what things will go where – which items we use up or give away, what items go into our suitcases, or in the Unaccompanied Baggage (UAB), which will travel to our next Post by air, or the Household Effects (HHE), which will travel to our next Post by sea and/or land. I sort; I make piles. But it is always the morning of and the movers arrive and things start happening very quickly, and it becomes overwhelming.

This time was much the same. The three movers fanned out across the apartment and began wrapping things up. This time was a bit different as I actually had furniture. For the past 15 years, I have largely moved from furnished apartments where I am for State Department training to furnished homes overseas. I have not had much in the way of furniture, except for decorative pieces. Perhaps that is why I thought the movers were making such quick progress, as I watched large pieces get wrapped up and carted out? That is, if I were watching at all. I was in constant motion, still organizing things here and there. I usually pay more attention…

I was feeling pretty darn good about things. Look at me. I had found my own place to live. I had found my own movers. We were moving. Things seemed to be moving right about on time. I should have known better.

At three and a half hours in, I am starting to feel fatigued. This is usually when I want to lock myself in my bedroom and wish the movers away. The owner calls me into what was once my bedroom and tells me, “I think we have just about everything packed up. We will get a few more things and then drive the truck over to the new place and unload.” I look around my bedroom. It is not empty. There are several items on the floor, both closets are still full; I know my daughter’s bedroom has things strewn all over the floor; I know the movers have not been in the kitchen at all. I am very confused.

I mention this to the guy and he looks at me and says, “Oh, you wanted us to pack things for your too? Packing and moving are two different things.”

I was that years old when I learned that.

It was not the fault of the movers. I hired a small business that had probably never done a State Department pack-out. They are used to people moving locally or perhaps to a neighboring state, not another country. Their customers are usually well aware of the difference between packing and moving, so it never occurred to him to ask about it. And it was not my fault either. I have been moved by the government since January 2009. It never occurred to me that packing was not included.

At that point, we were where we were. The mover said he would take the items over to our new place, unload them, then he and his crew would grab a late lunch, buy packing materials, and meet us back at the old apartment. Unfortunately, that meant a move he had estimated would take three to four hours ended up taking ten. It cost me nearly twice as much as expected. But the movers were great—they rolled with it despite my mistake. I do not think everyone would have.

It was an exhausting day. Usually, when the State Department moves us, the pack-out from Location A takes two or three days. Nearly all of your belongings are then carted away, and you spend the last several weeks before your departure without most of your things. Sometime later—perhaps after months of training and finally arriving at Location B—your shipment is delivered. In my experience, that has been anywhere from three to eighteen months later. Here, I was moving only half a mile away, so all of my belongings were packed out of Apartment A and delivered to Apartment B on the very same day. I did not like it.

There were other challenges:

The electricity, which I thought would remain on until midnight, shut off in the middle of the day. There went my plan to do one final vacuum before handing over the apartment. It also meant the air conditioning stopped on an increasingly warm day, and suddenly I was paying much closer attention to everything sitting in the refrigerator. I went back at midnight to get the food.

At some point, the battery in my key fob died, making it a little extra challenging to load my car.

My sciatic nerve, which had already been making life interesting in the weeks before, reminded me that moving boxes and lifting things were not among its favorite activities.

When we finally arrived at the new apartment, the smoke alarm immediately decided to announce our arrival to the entire building.

And somewhere among what felt like a hundred boxes, the cat food disappeared. It eventually turned up – though weeks later. I had to order some online after my midnight foray to the gas station across the street revealed no cat food, only tuna, in a can, that needed a can opener, and I didn’t know where that was either.

When I went back the next day, I found three or four large boxes worth of my things still in the apartment! Lucky for me, I had asked for another day off from work and could keep bringing things over.

The day after the move, I returned to my old apartment to finish cleaning and meet my landlord one last time. It already felt different.

For thirty-nine months, I had known every corner of that apartment; I knew where the afternoon sun came through the windows, and exactly how to jiggle the front door when it stuck. I knew my neighbors and the front desk staff. Twenty-four hours later, it felt strangely unfamiliar. Not because anything had changed. I had. It had already become a place where I used to live.

Now, more than a month after the move, I am still settling in. The new apartment is only a few miles from the old one. I shop at many of the same stores, drive many of the same roads, and work in the same office. From the outside, very little has changed. And yet, home is more than geography. It turns out that feeling at home takes time, even when you have not gone very far.

Pictures find their places on the walls. The boxes gradually disappear. New routines quietly replace old ones. Eventually, this apartment will simply become home, just as the last one did. Until, someday, it is time to move again.

This move was hardly my longest. It did not involve passports, visas, shipping containers, or crossing oceans. It was only a few miles across Northern Virginia.

But it taught me something I had somehow missed after so many moves: There is a difference between moving and being moved.

This spring, for the first time, I experienced both.