Is It Time To Fly?

This is a personal topic I want to touch base on, which may not seem like the best thing to do on a public Internet page like my blog. But as someone who loves to write, there is an enormous advantage to talking about these things. When something begins to nag you, writing it down transfers it from your brain to the paper allowing you to acknowledge and let it go. A strategy that has helped ease my anxiety many times, even if it’s a tiny issue like what someone said to me in a comment thread.

This issue is not something that is urgent, but it is something that I often think of from time to time as an adult. I’m sure it all comes to our minds eventually.

I have never relocated in my life, ever. I’ve been living in the same house with my family since I was born. I guess you could consider me very lucky because moving a lot can be stressful. My parents never felt the need to move because they liked the neighbourhood we lived in and neither of them had a job that was too far away from that said neighbourhood.

When I started college at a campus a little further from home, the option to move into a residence dorm was presented, but I chose not to pursue it because it was really expensive, and my parents were already paying my tuition fees, I didn’t want to burden them with too many costs so I chose to stay at home and commute to the campus instead.

Ever since I found out about my ASD diagnosis, I have made a commitment to push myself for a better future and to live a life as normal as possible. That one day includes living independently.

At first, I was concerned about what society says, where they expect you to have yourself together and out on your own by the age of 25 or 30, and I am less than two years from the latter and still living at home. There are several reasons for this, one of them being I wanted to wait until I had a stable job and income, now that I have that, the other reasons come into play.

The most obvious one is that I cannot afford it right now. Although I put money away regularly, I don’t want to settle for moving into the first apartment that catches my eye because I am not in a hurry to leave the nest. It’s an outrage how expensive some places can be lately, not all of us are rich, it’s like we have to either win the lottery, save for years or get help from family.

That’s why I think today, that age no longer matters when you should move out. It’s the new norm to live at home in your 20s and also 30s because of this.

I frequently spend a lot of time thinking about what I want my first place to look like. I don’t think I could ever afford a house unless it was a small one, but they are still a lot of maintenance for one person. I also have this desire to own a condo rather than rent one, no particular reason why, I just do because I don’t want to relocate too much in my life. You could say that’s because, as I said, I didn’t do much of that growing up!

Sometimes I look at condos and save the ones I like while also working on getting my driver’s license. So you might ask me, why else do I still stay? It’s because I don’t feel mentally ready to go. That is something that has been slowly waning, but it does take time. I find myself with a lot of irrational concerns about moving out of my parent’s home.

You can laugh if you want when I tell you what the biggest one is: Taking my things with me and will they all fit in my new place. In movies, TV shows and sometimes articles, they always show the person relocating purges all of their memorabilia, parts with childhood memories, etc. I was worried that my parents would push me to do this, so I told them how I felt.

The response was simple:

It’s your stuff Emily, you take it with you when you are ready to move out.

That reassurance did relieve that irrational concern so it made me say to hell with anyone who thinks I should purge everything when I move out one day. Some memorabilia I own is not expendable like some of my action figures, my autographed posters, and plushies that I have bought from specific sources. Wherever I go, they go with me.

I often worry about how will everything I own fit in my future condo? It’s hard to imagine because all of my stuff is currently crammed in one bedroom which makes it look like a lot of things but it really isn’t. Some things I have decluttered, but still, I would NEVER purge everything prior to moving, it goes with me when I go into my new home, whenever and wherever it is.

One time I showed my mom, a condo that I thought was nice and asked her where all my things would go, like my desk and PC. Online the place looked really small, but she told me that it was more than enough space and my desk and PC could go in the corner in the living room area. I could also have a wall dedicated to my posters. Not all of it has to go in my bedroom, it’s my place I make it however I like. You could say that’s why I don’t want a roommate hahaha, I like my solitude and want my own place to say “me” everywhere.

My mom and I like to talk about living independently a lot because I know she enjoys looking at houses and such. Sometimes people have a thing they enjoy looking at for fun like my dad likes to look at cars. When my mom talks about it with me, it’s not serious, but in the past, I would sometimes take it as it is. She also warned me not to rush into moving unprepared. That is also why I’m not in a hurry to do it. However, she also encourages me to keep it in mind and do little things to prepare like help out around the house more and make an Excel sheet of essential things I will need for my first place like plates for the kitchen and a rack for the toilet paper in the bathroom.

Even though I would rather take my time and save money, I sometimes have thoughts in my head that make me look forward to it when I think I’m ready financially and mentally. Those thoughts include things like lack of privacy being the biggest one. I won’t go into any details on that.

Some of my classmates from school have already strutted out on their own while some are still living at home. Everyone’s situation is different. I’m not desperate, but it does feel good to write about this because it greatly reduces my anxiety of when the time comes.

Right now, I just want to focus on getting my driver’s license and putting money away. Chances are I might get my own car before I get my own place. I will talk more about the driving piece in another article. That is also why I chose this title for the blog, moving one day, is like a bird leaving its mother’s nest. I know that time is coming for me, I do have legit concerns for when it does. I often have a hard time knowing when the time will be. The choice I have made right now is that I will move out one day, I just don’t know when that day is, and that’s okay.

Thanks for listening to me vent.

👽Emily