Three friend groups, and I am not going to make that sound clean. At sixteen I was alone for a long time afterward. The 2008 decision cut me off from my own community in a country where I had nobody else, and I made it within days of arriving, which was either brave or arrogant and I still do not know which.
I also want to be honest about what I cannot prove. I tell you these were the right calls because I am standing where I am standing. I do not have the version of my life where I kept those friends, so I cannot hold it up next to this one. What I have is a pattern that repeated three times, which is better than a feeling and much worse than a control group.
And I was not gracious about it. At sixteen especially I did not leave kindly, I left completely, and some of that was a teenager being righteous rather than a person being careful.