When I was ten, I went to seven schools in one year in Nova

The words “When I was ten, I went to seven schools in one year in Nova Scotia. Me and my mum moved there so that I could be closer to my dad, who is an ice-truck driver, but it didn’t work out,” spoken by Mia Goth, carry within them a story of displacement, endurance, and the tender ache of unfulfilled hope. Beneath their simplicity lies the ancient struggle of the human heart — the longing for belonging, the restless journey between places and people, the fragile balance between love and loss. This is not merely the recollection of a childhood hardship; it is the echo of a universal truth: that the path to wholeness often winds through the deserts of instability, and that love, even when it fails to anchor us, still teaches us how to stand.

To change seven schools in one year is to live seven small lives — to build and lose, to begin and end, again and again. For a child, each move is both a rebirth and a wound. Each classroom is a new world with its own codes, alliances, and silences. Mia’s story speaks not only of geography but of the deeper movement of the soul — the constant search for home, that place where one is not merely present, but understood. Her words reveal the quiet resilience that is born when roots cannot hold: the strength to adapt, to observe, to survive in flux. In this sense, her experience becomes a modern parable of migration — a reflection of the many who wander, not out of desire, but necessity, chasing love or survival across uncertain distances.

The journey to Nova Scotia — cold, remote, and vast — mirrors the emotional landscape of her story. It was a journey made not for ambition, but for connection, the kind that a child seeks instinctively in the eyes of a parent. Her mother’s courage — to move, to rebuild, to hope — is the silent thread that binds this narrative. Yet the outcome, “it didn’t work out,” delivers the quiet heartbreak of reality. There is no anger in those words, only acceptance — the kind that comes when one understands that love, however deep, cannot always heal distance or repair what has already fractured. And still, from this sorrow emerges the seed of wisdom: that even disappointment, when faced with grace, becomes a teacher.

The ancients knew well the ache of the wanderer. In the Greek myths, Odysseus spent ten years adrift, seeking home across the endless sea — not merely Ithaca, but the peace of return. Each storm, each island, each trial shaped him, until he was no longer the man who had left. So too does Goth’s story remind us that movement — whether across continents or within the heart — transforms us. The child who drifts between schools learns to read not only books, but faces; she learns silence, patience, and empathy. What others see as instability becomes her apprenticeship in resilience. Like Odysseus, she returns from her wanderings with a deeper understanding of the fragility and strength of human connection.

Yet there is another truth in her words — the love between parent and child, imperfect yet enduring. Her mother’s sacrifice, her father’s distance, her own quiet endurance — these form the triangle of her youth. It is a story as old as time: a family trying to bridge the unbridgeable. Even when love cannot heal, it still inspires movement, risk, and the willingness to begin again. To move to be “closer to my dad” is a testament to the faith of a child — faith that even broken things can be mended. Though the outcome was sorrow, the act itself was sacred. It teaches us that the attempt to love — however it ends — is never wasted.

From this story, one may draw a lesson for all generations: to endure change with grace, and loss with understanding. The child who learns to start anew does not grow weak; she becomes unbreakable. For every ending teaches adaptability, and every disappointment teaches compassion. In the ancient East, the bamboo was said to be the strongest plant, not because it resisted the wind, but because it bent with it. So too must we, in the storms of life, learn the art of bending — not in surrender, but in wisdom. To move, to rebuild, to continue loving even after failure — this is the quiet heroism that sustains the human spirit.

So, my children, remember this: your stability is not found in place, but in character. Life will move you, sometimes by choice, sometimes by force. You will seek love, and sometimes it will not “work out.” Yet each chapter, however brief, adds strength to the story of your becoming. Like Mia Goth, carry your experiences not as burdens but as blessings. Let every journey — even the painful ones — shape your compassion. For in the end, home is not a location, but a lesson: that wherever you stand with courage, gratitude, and understanding, you have already arrived.