Mooovin' on UUUP! Tooo the Eaast Siiiide

SWEET JEEBUS. I cannot wait to move out. Here’s a short list of reasons why:

1. Having a better relationship with my parents ‘cause I’ll actually miss them and want to talk to them
2. Only cooking what I want to cook and getting only the groceries that I want.
3. Feeling like I am my own person and have my own life separate from my parents’
4. Dating – I am WAY past the age to have someone pick me up at my house and meet my parents before we even go anywhere. I’m also a woman capable of making sexual decisions for herself and I am NOT having that conversation with my parents about why I stayed over with a boyfriend, and no man is ever staying over at this house while my parents are under the same roof. Absolutely never.
5. Making some nutritional/kitchen life changes that I’ve always wanted to.

You could say that I can do two or five now. But I guess you don’t really know my family. My father is the one in charge of the groceries and he hates change. So if you say you like something, he’ll buy it for you…for the rest of your life. So my culinary pattern of liking something for two or three weeks and then switching to something else is not manageable in anyone’s hands but my own.

Also when I’m in the kitchen trying something new, he talks to me like I’m a five year old making play-dough spaghetti. Like it’s adorable and cute and silly. The problem is that he still sees me as his little girl sometimes, and I have insecurity issues with being perceived as young or immature. It’s nobody’s fault but it still aggravates me.

I want to grow an herb garden. I want to make my own bread. I want to join a CSA. All of these ideas I have that would definitely be good for my health and probably good for my wallet (not sure about the CSA thing cost-wise, it depends) and I am just ready to be an ADULT. I know that going out on your own (or even with roommates) means financial difficulties, stress, and other unwelcome problems, but I want those problems. I want to replace my current problems with the latter, because ultimately they’re worth it for my own sanity.

And I don’t mean to complain or be ungrateful for what my parents are giving me – they are amazing people and I love them more than I can say. My dad makes me laugh a million times a day and my mom is the sweetest human being on earth. But #1 - I think I'm trying to distance myself because they're getting older (65 and 63) and they're not OLD yet, I know, but I'm starting to think about it and it scares me like you wouldn't believe and distancing myself is a pretty normal reflex. And apart from them, moving out and all the emotions that go with it are a part of growing up, a rite of passage I have yet to experience and sorely need to.

I need a source of income to move out. I may have one – not a full time job, but I have this part time opportunity (that’s why I needed the mini-physical) that starts in a few weeks. I am not going to talk about it because talking specifics about work/jobs on the internet is a terrible idea, and also I don’t want to jinx anything. But it might give me enough money to be able to move out.

I have a close friend that I met in grad school, PBP. We met during our orientation and fortuitously had a couple of classes together our first semester. We became attached at the hip. After a few months, if our classmates saw one of us alone they would concernedly ask where the other one was. I love PBP to pieces. She also has a boyfriend that I adore – not in THAT way – he and I get along wonderfully.

The three of us have a great balance because he and I have stuff in common that PBP doesn’t really like, but obviously PBP and he have a special connection, and PBP and I have basically our own language and we are a force to be reckoned with when we’re together. There are checks and balances.

Their lease runs out in January and the three of us have been talking about moving in together. Splitting a two-bedroom place three ways has its financial benefits, that’s for sure. We’ve been calling it Operation Three’s Company. We haven’t seriously talked about it in a few months, because it all depended on me getting a job. So when I found out about the part time thing (that in all likelihood will present me with enough income to live) I told PBP that I am diving in headfirst and if she still wanted to, Operations Three’s Company should commence. It’s time. I just want to dive in and make it work. I’m sick of playing it safe or waiting ‘just a few more months’ because I’ve done it enough. And maybe it’s a little reckless but I kind of like that. It’s part of the appeal.

So PBP has to talk to her boyfriend to see if it’s still something he/they want to do. And I’m waiting. I won’t be that upset if they say no, I understand the decision to add a third person to a couple living together isn’t easy, for both sides. But boy oh boy would it be great.