Change can feel like loss even when it’s good. Moving into the dorm you wanted still means packing up your old room.

Wanting something does not protect you from missing what it replaces. The room you are leaving has years in it, and the fact that you chose to go does not cancel the strangeness of taking the posters down. Good news and sadness arrive together more often than people admit, and the sadness is not a sign you chose wrong.

If something you wanted is about to change your life, let the leaving have its own moment. Photograph the old room, say a proper goodbye to someone, keep one object. Then go, without needing to feel only one thing.