One Year Of Living By Myself...

Hi. I hope you are well and having a good day.

Today I wanted to make a one year update post on living by myself! I was going to do a six month post, but six months came around really quickly so I thought I might as well just write a post for the one year mark! 

One year is a substantial amount of time, and I think living alone in my late twenties really has changed my perspective on life. I do believe living alone is one of the most emotionally resilient, yet rewarding things you can do. You are forced to sit with that discomfort of being by yourself, and in a space where it is just you and your own thoughts. Living alone does require a new level of strength, vulnerability, growth and independence and in a strange way, I do feel privileged that I get to experience living alone.

For the majority of the time, I do enjoy living alone and after a year of living by myself, I now feel really comfortable being in my own company. I love being in a space which I created and designed myself, I love being in a space that truly feels like home. My house is a real reflection of me as a person, and I love it! I haven't felt truly at home anywhere over the past few years and it is such a comforting feeling that I finally feel like I have a place I can call my home, and I have been really surprised by how quickly I have settled into living here. 

I was so nervous to move into my house as I was scared I wasn't going to like it and feel really lonely. Sometimes I don't like it, and can feel really lonely at times and there are phases where I can really struggle. However for 90% of the time, I just feel really peaceful and comfortable being here. With living alone, I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, which is free from any judgement or disapproval. The freedom of living alone is truly satisfying. 

I also feel so much more motivated to get things done and to try new things whilst living alone. I really struggled with my motivation levels in previous years and since I moved back to my parents, my motivation levels are a lot higher. I have been getting a lot more things done in general, I am going out a lot more and I am pretty good at getting household chores and jobs done as well... In that respect, living alone has actually helped me with living a more fulfilled life, which has ultimately made me happier.

In the darker evenings, I love lighting a candle, getting snuggled up under a blanket and putting whatever I want to watch on the TV. I love playing Just Dance whenever I want to exercise, and in the lighter evenings, I love getting cosy and reading a book! I love Sunday evenings, where I am usually cooking and enjoying a homemade meal (if the Sunday hasn't been busy!), which is really satisfying at the end of the week. I try to do this throughout a couple of weekdays as well, I do try and batch book considering I am only cooking for me, and I do love trying new recipes when I can. Right now, I am learning to enjoy being in the present moments of living by myself.

However there times where I can really struggle with living by myself. I want to be really honest in this blog post about the realities of living alone, and I have to remind myself to not put too much pressure on myself with things as it can feel overwhelming at times. There has been a massive feeling of overwhelmed-ness throughout this first year of living alone, the overall feeling like I am not doing enough and feeling pretty down as a result. There are times where I can struggle to keep on top of things. Everything in the house is reliant on me, all decisions are my own and it can feel a lot at times when it is just me, and for someone who struggles to make decisions at times! Sometimes I feel like I am treading water, and only just keeping my head above the water. I do try to keep in a routine with things, however different things can move around a lot at time, and I do struggle to get into and maintain a structured routine for longer periods of time. When I do get myself into a routine, things work really well and I am really trying to learn to not be too hard on myself when things don't quite work out.. This is something I am still trying to work on! However I think it is really important to schedule different things to look forward to whilst living alone, I will always try and make sure to schedule in different things to look forward to in advance and that will always take precedence! 

As previously mentioned, there are also times where I can really struggle being by myself, it can feel quite lonely and isolating at times. To live by yourself, you have to have the emotional strength to sit with yourself and not feel the need to be around others all the time. When I have had a difficult day, it can feel very overwhelming being here by myself without having anyone to talk to about it. I have had a couple of instances where I have been in the office, and dreaded going back to my empty house after a tough day. In those instances, I have learnt that taking myself to the cinema really helps.. I love getting immersed into a film at the cinema! The good news for me is that I know I am getting better at handling that feeling as I am yet to go to the cinema this year so far! 

Admittedly I didn't expect myself to be at this point in my life right now... Living alone in my late twenties as someone who feels like they don't really know what they are doing. However life can be unpredictable at times. The big 3-0 is approaching and I feel like I am only just really starting my life again in some ways and the best way to look at that is to look forward to whatever the future may holds! I look back at my life from a few years ago, and I don't recognise my life, or myself. It took me a while to admit it at the time a few years ago, but I wasn't happy with myself or my life... I felt depressed and unmotivated with so many different things. Living alone has definitely given me a new sense of motivation and determination for life, and I am really enjoying my life again.

I look at my friends and peers and it feels like a lot have settled down, living together, getting married and having kids, which is a very natural process when being in your mid/late twenties. It makes me really happy to see friends and peers achieving those accomplishments, and I would love to hope for some of those accomplishments to happen in my life too one day, however I know now is not my time for them. I am very aware and still trying to accept the fact that they may not ever happen for me. When I was single and buying a house solo, it was a very emotional time as I felt like I had to somewhat process and accept the possibility that I may not find someone else and have a life with a partner again. Admittedly even though I am in a relationship now, that is still the biggest thing that I do contend with when living alone at times! 

I am a very independent person, which has helped with living alone, but at the same time, I know I would love to be living an every day life with a partner one day. That being said, I don't want to be in a relationship or living with a partner just for the sake of following societal expectations. I am extremely grateful to be with my boyfriend, who is an absolutely incredible person and someone who I would love to build a future with one day. We try and see each other once or twice a week, which is dependant on what we both have on. I think a lot of people naturally assume we are with each other the majority of the time, however we are both pretty independent people, and we have to work around what we both have on to see each other. Therefore I do spend the good majority of time by myself, but I do really look forward to the times when I am with him. I wish I could be with him all the time, but there is something quite nice about having the proper time to miss him!

I had almost two years of being single before I got into my relationship last year, and from being single, and the one thing I wanted to work on was building a happy and fulfilled life for myself whilst living alone and being single, which was the most important thing to me and I would say I successfully managed to do before entering into another relationship. I really want to keep my independence however at the same time, I also know I would love to live with my boyfriend and build a life with him one day in the future, if things are meant to work out for us. And I think there is always a sense of wanting what we don't or can't have! Despite that nagging feeling at times, I know that I am meant to be here at this point in my life, I know I need this time to live with myself and I am happy with where I am at right now. 

In some ways, I don't really have any desire to have friends round. Which may sound a bit odd, I have only had a couple of friends round, and even then it wasn't even organised for them to come round.. We were going out and I thought I might as well show them my house before going out! I see my house as my safe space, my own sanctuary away from the world. I feel like I spend a good majority of time here as it is so I would much rather go out and see my friends whilst doing different things! 

I have noticed the more I live by myself, the more I am enjoying it. It's so refreshing that things are in relatively good order, and being responsible just for my own things! I have definitely noticed that although I can be untidy at times, I am pretty good at keeping things clean. I love the freedom of living alone that I can do what I want, when I want and I don't have to consult with anyone else about my decisions or routines.

One thing that has really improved for me since living alone is ordering takeaway food. Since I have lived here, I have not ordered one takeaway! I have had the odd Dominos or Mcdonalds, which has been collected from the actual store, but I have not ordered an actual takeaway. Even then, it has been months since I had a Dominos or a Mcdonalds! I have definitely become more disciplined in the sense of cooking my own food and I love to try out new things. Even though I do love living alone, I am a social person, so having some sort of scheduled social time throughout the weeks is really important to me hence why I usually do get things planned in advance and this is something which I have really implemented into my living alone journey as well.. There's definitely a balance between feeling comfortable in your own company and avoiding becoming a hermit!

To conclude this post, it has been a great year for self-discovery, which is something that living alone really does help with. I feel like I have learnt so much about myself in so many different ways this year! My advice for living alone includes having a comfort TV show on in those first few unfamiliar weeks (I had a portable DVD player with me when I didn't have a TV!), ease yourself in gently, don't put too much pressure on yourself (easier said than done...), make sure to have social events planned throughout the week (an essential if you are a home worker) and remember that you are doing great!

So yeah, it's all good...

Amy