Many people consider moving from just one state to another to be life-changing, but Meghan Scott spent the better part of her childhood on the move because her dad was a doctor for the U.S. Navy.
Scott is a junior at BU studying advertising and journalism. Born in Chesapeake, Virginia, she lived there for only three years before moving across the ocean to Naples, Italy. She spent another three years there until her family moved back to Olney, Maryland. After another three years, they were off to Champaign, Illinois, for two years before finally moving to Hagerstown, Maryland, where they lived until last year.
“In the moment I hated moving,” she said. “But looking back on it, it’s something I’ve learned to appreciate.”
Scott had a more unique childhood than usual. For example, she only learned Italian in preschool and wasn’t able to talk to her family, and she thought hot dogs and french fries were normal pizza toppings.
When she was seven, she broke her arm, and her parents took her to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where her dad worked. She wanted a pink cast, but they only had camouflage.
“They searched everywhere and finally found hot pink, and when they were wrapping it, I was so nervous,’’ Scott said. But a veteran next to her who clearly had far worse injuries looked at her and told her, “You’re so brave.”
“It’s stuff like that that I thought was normal, until now when I realize that it’s not,” she said.
Despite her different upbringing, Scott says that all the moving around also brought her closer to her family and friends.
“Since we’ve been sort of on-the-go, I feel like I really value my family and spending time with them because that was my only constant growing up,” she said. “We’ve always been so tight-knit, and we’ve all been so vulnerable and new in so many places in our lives, as a unit we all have an understanding of that even if we don’t talk about it.”
Scott also noted that though moving was tough on her friendships, it made them stronger in the end. “It was hard, but it was important to figure out how to keep up with them because communication is an important skill when it comes to friendships,” Scott said. “I think moving around made making friendships easier and for that reason I consider the people who are close to me to have a huge impact on me.”
Life still wasn’t easy, though.
“If I wasn’t so young when we did the majority of the moving, I think it would have had a bigger impact on my mental health,” Scott said, noting that there were times when she would get upset about moving, but she was so young she didn’t know how to identify what she was feeling. “I think a lot of the way I compensated for being sad about it was by being excited for the next place,” she added.
After moving around so much, she had been in international school, public school, and Catholic school. When she was a sophomore in high school, Scott decided to go to boarding school, which she said was her favorite school experience.
“I loved my high school experience,” she said. “I felt like I was always the new person in the community and when I went to boarding school, it felt like the one time in my life that I knew the community and everyone around me was also new.”
She added that being able to go home whenever she wanted made going away for school much easier. “Boarding school was the easiest transition because there was never a real goodbye,” she said.
After uprooting themselves six times, the Scott family now resides in Frederick, Maryland, where Meghan’s dad now has a private ENT practice.
When considering where she feels most at home, Scott said that it isn’t so much about where she is anymore, but who she’s with.
“My home isn’t a place. We could be anywhere, but it’s really about the people,” she said. “The amount of friends I have been able to make and the amount of meaningful relationships I’ve been able to make has had a significant impact on me.”
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