Monday 8 October 2012

Moving into Independent Life

Up until about a month ago, right at the beginning of my gap year, I had never moved bedroom, let alone house. I had always slept in the same bedroom, under the same roof, in the house my parents chose for their four children.

And now...

Well now I am all moved in and settled with my boyfriend. (And our three housemates.) And it's great, but I have to admit, there are some home comforts I miss. So, in no particular order, here are my top 5 least favourite things about independent living.

1. Cooking for myself. Now I'm no great chef and have no interest in cooking really, so when I'm in the house on my own and have to provide a meal for myself, it makes no difference if all I fancy is a sandwich, I will always wait until I am absolutely starving before tearing myself away from whatever I am doing, be it watching a film or working from home. It's a kind of laziness vicious circle that I can't break.

2. Ironing all my own clothes (and my boyfriend's). Now, in discussing with my boyfriend who would do which household chores, I, for some mad reason, volunteer to iron, partially because my boyfriend hates it, and partially because I thought it might be fun. That's right, fun. I thought it'd be a breeze, that I could pop on a TV programme and casually work my way through it. Reality: it's hard work, the clothes seem to come out worse than they started, I have no clue if I'm actually working our iron properly, it'd be too much faff to move our ironing board and it leaves me with a sore wrist.

3. Being "home alone". I've never been a big fan of this one, and I suppose it's not exclusive to independent living, but because of my situation, where I do a lot of work at home, work on the weekends, and all of my housemates and boyfriend have full-time jobs, I do find myself more frequently alone. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my own company, I have always been two faced about socialising - on the one hand, I love spending time with my friends, my family and in other social situations, such as participating in a play or my time spent at work, on the other hand, I can be a very solitary person and if I spend too much time in the company of people, I begin to feel antsy and need my own space. Therefore, the reason that I dislike being "home alone" is not because I feel lonely, but because I can be a very anxious person, and every little noise, flickering light or movement outside the house freaks me out a little, if I feeling down.

4. Getting myself up in the morning. Now that I don't have school to go to, nor do I have a full-time job, days when I am not working are incredibly difficult to get myself up in the morning. Especially now I don't have my mum-alarm clock to help. However my boyfriend is beginning to pester me in the morning to get up. :-)

5. Washing/Loading the dishwasher. Now, I actually don't mind either of these jobs to begin with but my main problem with them, is that they are jobs that require coming back to, which irritates me. I like jobs that once they are done, they are done and I don't have to go back to them. Whilst dishwashers and washing machines are incredible inventions that make menial tasks a lot easier, they still require more than one stage of work. So if someone could think of a washing machine that then dries the clothes, or a dishwasher that unloads itself, I would be most grateful. :-D

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