When most people talk about moving out at my age, it usually tends to center around moving a few miles or maybe to another city to live on the campus at a University. I, however, have got to experience an entirely distinct definition of living on my own; the one where living on different continents means that I can only visit my family once a year, and tasting my mom’s homemade cooked meals on the weekend has no meaning anymore. Despite what it may seem, this has been one of the most exciting periods of my life that comes with its ups and downs.
Photo by Brina Blum
At first, when you move into your own place, it’s a mixture of fear, excitement, and bewilderment that seizes you. Fear about all the unknown feelings, skills and experiences you’re going to face, excitement about all the new adventures and memories you’ll be building on your very own for the very first time. Bewilderment at the fact that all of a sudden your life has switched from that warm cocoon of family care and nurture, to being let go into the world with all its flaws and complicated churns.
Photo by Geoffrey Arduini
So, I must admit that at the beginning for me the experience was not very pleasing because I was too busy trying to coordinate my way around, and trying to figure out all the little but important details. These consisted of things like picking an affordable network company, finding a job within range and easy to get to by public transport, as well as finding the nearest and least expensive grocery store around my neighborhood. A lot of us get lucky in the sense that we don’t have to experience these things until much later in life due to having our families around; but then there are those who leave everything and travel across the globe to come study abroad and start their lives anew.
Surely, you can see that there are lots of downs to living alone, to which I have only described the very few trivial ones because I believe the advantages of this experience is something that outweighs the negatives with complete certainty. While there may be those weeks where you can’t afford rent or those days where you have to wake up early to go to work and then head straight off to school to take an exam, or times where you just get into arguments with your roommate about house chores; the experiences all sum up to something amazing. And for me, unlike what it might be for some people, it’s not the fact that I can party whenever I want or spend the night at a friend’s without having to inform my parents- although, those do help.
Photo by Ellieelien
Living alone makes us who we are. All of our lives we are protected and shielded by our parents. At a certain point, we have to be let go into the real world so that we can become independent, make our mistakes and learn our own lessons. I like facing my own hardships and having to take care of myself instead of having others worry about me for a change. The early mornings when you wake up with a warm coffee in your hand while you stare at the snow outside your window, the late-night deep conversations you have with your roommate, and lighting a few candles while you study inside of your living room, are just things that feel different when you live alone. All the hardships we face, make it so that we learn to handle our own problems ourselves so that we can wake up the next morning and start a new day all on our own.