My Moving Out Experience

Tuesday 7th March, 2017.

2016 was a pretty big year for me, in both a good way and also in pretty awful way. It was filled with exciting opportunities and yet somehow still felt like it could have been one of the most disastrous years of my life so far.

For a very long time, I was insistent on moving out. I was so desperate to move out from the age of 17 that I actually started to buy things that I would use in my future house (mainly decorational bits - nothing huge like a sofa) and had it all stored away in my loft ready for when I were to leave.

In January 2016 I took that leap (at the age of 20) and moved out, sharing a house with one of my friends. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. It was only ever meant to be a 6 month taster that ended up turning into a year, and a lot happens in a year.

That house saw so many things. It saw frustration, anger, friendships, endless laughing, too much drinking, love and sadness. It saw my old car and my new car and plenty of Harry Potter films... Over and over and over again.

 One of the biggest frustrations in that house most definitely had to be how EVERYTHING BROKE. I'm not even joking. Our washing machine broke a record two THREE TIMES in the space of under 6 months and caused havoc on the kitchen floor (wooden floor) causing it to rise up and make a sound as if you were walking on fishes for 3 days. The oven, microwave (two microwaves to be exact) and even the fridge/freezer fucked up. The satellite for the TV never worked and so we spent our time watching films or streaming from my laptop. Within the first week of moving in someone broke into my car and stole my Chanel sunglasses (first world problems) and my full Pandora bracelet. The door handle for the bathroom broke off and so we used a period pad to stop the door from closing properly and trapping whatever poor soul went in there. The twisty thing to turn the shower kept breaking off until one night a friend came up with the genius idea of using pliers to turn the shower on and off. Oh and finally, there was also a leak from the bathroom into the kitchen... WOW.

With moving out comes a lot more responsibility when looking after yourself. No longer did I have my dad to do my food shopping for me and I was faced with the reality that it was pretty damn expensive to buy food and keep up with simple things like toilet roll and washing up things. From time to time I was left with eating something as little as a pack of noodles a day with cheese to snack on in between and making the strangest meals out of anything that you could find around the house. When I was having a richer month, however, I was blessed with more glamorous meals and take outs.

It does also have its plus sides! I was free. Completely free to be my own person, make my own choices and do my own things without having anyone to tell me otherwise. I could wash up when I wanted to, hoover when I wanted to and walk round naked (if I wanted to). I was a firm believer on keeping the main house clean because it was something that everyone would see when they were round, and when it wasn't kept clean, I was definitely a Tasmanian devil about it.

Another awesome pro was that having pre drinks or parties would be so breezy and having the fear of having a parent beat your arse for making too much mess wasn't a thing. You could drink and clean up once the hangover and many hours of sleep had passed (I'm lucky enough to not get hangovers, but you get the point).

Waking up every morning to a room that I had decorated myself felt incredible. To see all the pictures I had printed out around the room and have an absolutely huge mirrored wardrobe (that still struggled to hold all of my clothes) was amazing. I was allowed anyone I wanted round at any time of the day and I felt like the ultimate grown up.

Occasional nights would be spent with my housemate, Kayleigh, chatting for hours about our latest updates on work and our personal lives and I just can't explain to you how fun it was having my a place to call my own.

A year went so quickly it felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. In some ways I'm glad, and in others, I'm not. Despite having the most fun imaginable in that house, I felt like I was missing out on all the fun things I could do in life and that I was growing up too quickly. I had enough money to pay for my house, get me by, pay for my car and just about have a little bit over to treat myself, but I wanted more.

At the age of (now) 21, I should be living life. Experiencing new things and making mistakes that potentially get me killed... Ok, maybe not that far. But either way, all the things I had in mind just weren't feasible whilst living in that house. I wanted to spend an insane amount of money on a bag and not have to go hungry for the rest of the month, and so I made the decision to move back in with my dad, live my life and save up ready to move out again once I have the most action packed year (or two) of my life.

It was a hard decision deciding to move in with my dad. I didn't want to feel like I was moving backwards, but thinking about the huge majority of people I know and how they're still living with their parents made me feel good and it's not like I'm not in the position to move back out again if I really wanted to. Not only that, but the last couple of months living in that house became extremely lonely as I found I was living by myself most of the time, so in the end it became a slight no brainer.

I'm now back in my old bedroom, I've had it all re-done to remove all the past memories and make it seem like a new place and I'm feeling much more at ease and happier with the decision I've made. I'm still going out and doing all the things I done before, but this time there's more for me to do. I've booked Bulgaria and Ibiza and I have many more holidays planned for the rest of the year and all that wouldn't have been possible if I stayed where I was.

All in all, moving out was a very interesting experience. I'm glad I done it and I look forwards to doing it again, but for now... Here's to being 21 and living life how it should be done - spending crazy amounts of money and not remembering what it's been spent on.