From a Washington Post guest column by Jenny Rough:

Relocating is considered a type of loss — like death, divorce or a job layoff — because it disrupts social ties. …

When I was a teenager, my family relocated frequently for my dad’s job. As an introvert, I preferred a good book to slumber parties, and the moves hit me hard. Home was my sanctuary, my safe place. Meaningful friendships came slowly. Every time we uprooted, those hard-won social networks were torn away, and I silently swore I’d never become a trailing spouse.

Over a sushi dinner a decade into my life in Los Angeles and 2 1/2 years into my marriage, Ron told me he wanted to take a job in D.C.

I pointed my chopsticks at the palm trees. “We’re eating outside in February.”

Despite the refrain that lapped inside me like ocean waves — don’t move; don’t move; don’t move — we moved.

When we arrived in our new city, I wheeled my beach cruiser into the garage and parked it next to my inline skates. I missed my best friend, my book club, my favorite coffeehouse. I wrinkled my nose at the heavy colonial decor and longed for stucco. My area code, now 301 instead of 310, caused confusion among the California-based clients with whom I still worked, but mostly those two transposed numbers summed up how I felt: Rearranged.

Susan Miller, who moved 14 times in 25 years while her husband was in the prime of his hotel corporate management career, founded the faith-based nonprofit Just Moved Ministry to help people cope with letting go of an old place and starting over in a new one. I took Miller’s class at a church in McLean, Virginia even though, by then, I’d been around six years.

“Cherish, don’t cling,” the leader said, speaking to the danger of clutching to the past. The next day, I looked around. Could I learn to love this city? The Washington Monument stuck straight up in the air and taunted me like a middle finger.

My outlook finally changed when Ron took me to Los Angeles for my birthday. One morning I met a friend for coffee at Shutters on the Beach. She told me she was divorcing. The tension in her marriage had torn it apart.

As the plane approached Reagan National on the flight home, I wondered: Maybe loving Washington didn’t mean I had to wear Nats swag, become a political junkie or even stop pining for the mountains, sun and sea. Despite the links among geography, health and happiness, maybe the most important components were attitude and a willingness to adapt.

To love a city is to care for the people who live there. Ron loves Washington, and I love Ron. Real love means letting go of my own preferences to honor his. For years I’d been unable to embrace D.C. and its people because my hands were tied. In that moment on the plane from Los Angeles, I knew what to do: I laid down my rope.