Till about six months ago I used to find the whole idea of living alone and being independent extremely fascinating. But, my recent shift to the southern hemisphere has sprayed me with a dose of reality.
Everything about living alone used to feel exciting. The decision making, privacy, and independence had me on a roll. Well, sitting on my comfortable bed back in Delhi this is what I thought it’s all about and damn I was so wrong. Every notion I had about being a girl in a new city was wrong.
Here are the things facts about me that I should have considered before getting too excited.
1. Cleaning my room? Uh no!
Most of the people who have visited my room (Delhi) know how less I care about the clothes on my bed, the stationary pile next to it, the overload of collectibles from comic-con and of course my design projects and prototypes. I really didn’t care at all, I loved their presence around me. Every fortnight I would go up to my household didi and ask her to clean my room. With this hoarder attitude, I stepped into Sydney. New home, new room and a heck load of cleaning all left for me to do. My biggest challenge is constantly keeping my room clean and I pretty much suck at it. I hoard everything. Oh, pretty flyer, such an innovative packaging, ah Iove this shopping bag, urghh yes that’s me.
But now, I have to not only keep my room clean but also do my laundry all by myself. It sucks, really does and there’s nothing that makes me feel ahh I love this about any of it, but if I don’t there’s no one to do it for me.
My family loves the fact that I don’t have clothes on my bed anymore.
2. Cooking? Seriously? Never!
To be absolutely honest I found cooking very boring and never had any interest in pursuing it. All I loved doing was to eat, eat and eat. That’s one main reason my #GymLife hasn’t been able to achieve the perfect surfboard torso yet. Anyway, my dad had been asking me at least try to learn the basics of cooking. All I said to him was, “who? me? uh no!”. Over the years, I have thrown major tantrums at home regarding what I want to eat or don’t want to eat but never bothered to enter the kitchen and learn anything except Maggi, sandwiches, and omelets. No, I can’t make a cup of tea or desi chai. In spite of everyone in my family asking me to make an effort and try to learn something all I did was chill, gym, rave, repeat. Uh no, I didn’t do that either but I didn’t care enough to learn anything.
But now, I have to cook to survive. Binging on Masterchef and other cooking shows don’t really teach you the basics of cooking. I knew nothing. It’s been three months since I turned the stove on here and now I can successfully cook daal, rice, bhindi, pasta, garlic butter prawns, stir fry veggies, honey chili chicken and egg fried rice to name a few. Slowly, I have started to like it well I have to how else would I manage to feed myself three meals and snack binges in between. And, I think I kind of like it now.
My family is still in shock regarding this.
3. Waking up? Time management? What!
Before I left home, my dad asked me the same question every day, “beta will you be able to wake up every day and go for your classes?”. It was very valid for him to ask this question after all he has woken me up every single day of my life. School, college, graduation project and then work, he woke me up every morning. Alarm clocks don’t work for me, they never have. Neither have timetables and plans. I am the biggest procrastinator there can be. Four years of design school and I would always end up finishing up my projects a few hours before my jury.
But now, I manage to wake up by myself, get ready, eat breakfast and head to my classes on time. For me, it’s pretty commendable. Well, I have to don’t I.
My family is proud that I can wake up on time.
Overall, living alone has its perks of independence, zero time constraints, no rules and regulations and so on. It’s super fun and teaches you a new thing every day. Don’t know about others but it has definitely taught me how to be responsible (I can’t use the word ‘more’ for obvious reasons).
Living alone is pretty much the first real step towards #Adulting. You don’t have to shift your hemisphere for that, you can simply move out to a new state to get a taste of it. I never got a chance prior to this and was super scared about it all and trust me you’ll grow to like the feeling of it.
P.S. – Living alone feels amazing but I miss my family every single second.
The Quirky Dey 