If you've ever heard the phrase "you learn a lot about yourself when you live alone" before, I'm here to tell you it's true. I never thought this was something I could ever do, simply because of the fact that I am terrified of ghosts and so I practically sleep with a night light. My electricity bill would be out the ROOF. And yet, here I am, living solo. I moved out in August of 2017, and it's incredibly rewarding and yes, I regret not doing it much, much sooner. Like 3 years sooner.

It's not cheap to live on your own, of course, so there has always been that, but I wish I had had the opportunity to give myself this space a long time ago. I feel more creative. I am much happier. With the pros come the cons. The biggest factor is financial: I have less money on the side to save/spend how I like, which was hard in the beginning, especially when I would rather have that money for family, emergencies, traveling, crafting, and being that I am an impatient person, and I wanted to decorate my apartment the way I wanted to immediately.

Loneliness is another challenge, arguably my biggest one. It has taken me awhile to admit that I feel lonely often, partially because I hate showing weakness, and partially because I didn't want others to assume I'm taking the life I have now for granted. I have lived in Chicago without any family for nearly 9 years. It starts to add up, especially because I have never truly enjoyed certain things that other folks socialize around, like being at parties, or drinking alcohol (I don't drink at all), so it's quite hard for me to go to these things and socialize without getting bored and eating my weight in chips. I also tend to take awhile to warm up to new people, so making new friends while my long time friends are moving away has been harder than I expected. Loneliness can affect your mental health, so I try my best to find things I enjoy, like museums, cool exhibitions, and new restaurants and have a list for when I actually want to leave my apartment (LOL). The weekends are especially hard. Sunday was the one day my parents used to have off and my family would spend that day together.

The positives, of course, is that I have more space to do literally whatever I want. Now, I can have an office, I can decorate how I want, I can dance and sing at the top of my lungs, I can have plants, I can have photoshoots, and to fill my time, I've started new projects, like designing my own clothes and creating interactive art. I have the space to be an artist again. Compared to the happiness the pros have given me, the cons are so little in comparison and I feel they're nothing I can't handle. After all, I have made it in Chicago for the last 9 years, a couple more will never break me. I truly think living on my own is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I encourage everyone to try it out for at least one year in their lives, if you can afford it. You'll learn so much about yourself.

Thoughts On Living Alone