Ben
Posted: July 23rd, 2010 | Author: Abbi | Filed under: abbi, thoughts | 2 Comments »Very soon, for the first time in… well, in ages, I will be living on my own. I don’t think I’ve ever actually lived alone so it will be a bit of an odd experience.
At the moment, my brother, Ben, lives with me. But, he’s gone and bought a house so will be buggering off soon. He’s really pushing the boat out; he’s moving about 2 minutes walk away from me!
I’ll miss him once he’s gone, but at the same time I’m kind of looking forward to it. Ben is very good at looking after me – I often say I have no common sense, and that’s because he has all of my share. He tells me when I’m being a twat. He does my dresses up for me when I can’t quite reach the zip. He’s a million times better at cooking than I am. He remembers things like putting the rubbish out and buying milk. He gives me a hug when I really, really need one. He acts as my short term memory. In short, he’s awesome.
When he’s gone, I’m going to have to do all of these things myself. Some of them are doable. Like remembering the milk. However, some of them, like dress zips – not so much. It’s kind of hard to hug yourself as well, I find.
The extra room I’ll have will be odd as well. I mean, I live in a three bed house, ffs. I’ll have three bedrooms to fill with my junk! I have plans to make one of them a dressing room, and I’ll sit in there all dressed up, pretending I’m 3 again and playing with my mum’s make up.
Living alone can be testing, but it can also be one of the most enjoyable experiences. It has lots of pros (I’m thinking not bothering to lock the bathroom door, sitting naked in front of the TV, etc) and precious few cons (no one around for a hug, imagining you can hear the sound of a freight train approaching the house at least once an evening (at least in my case)). For having lived alone (London, 2007, year of the bombings of all the times!) I feel a stronger, more capable person, because the fact is you will do all that shit you currently rely so much on your bro for if you have to. You’ll do it because you have no other choice and that will be a great sense of achievement. Good luck, it’ll be grand.
To echo Ian’s words, living independently is great if you take advantage of it. Think of it as a rather scary but brilliant opportunity!