Sharehouse Tales III - "How's moving out?"

Great, I'm loving it, I've been really lucky to get a fantastic house and fantastic housemates, I usually respond. It's true - I definitely I'm happier now than I was a year ago. But it wasn't always sunshine and daisies. In fact, I was pretty miserable for the first few weeks, especially when it came to dinner time. It took some getting used to, having to buy the cheapest take out I could find and eating it alone rather than coming home to a hot meal with my Mum and brother. I hadn't gotten the hang of buying my own groceries and couldn't really cook anyways because we were still lacking a lot of kitchen essentials.

While everything at home was a mess, uni was getting messier with the first wave of assessments. In between writing essays I would have to make lists of essentials that I was missing, and then come up with the cheapest and practical way of acquiring them, and then spend half a day getting them and organising them. And then take a shower and realise I forgot a whole bunch of bathroom things. Throw in the phone calls from my Mum demanding that I go home immediately because of some "emergency" - which usually turned out to be something incredibly minor, something I could have done over the phone.

For about two solid weeks I also didn't have a desk at home, so I stayed late at the library nearly every night and battled my way through the blustery winter winds in the dark to get home because I wanted to save on bus fare. And when I got home the house was usually silent and dark with my housemates either gone to bed early or staying at their parents. I also started to get paranoid that my housemates didn't really like me, or that I would be the fourth random girl in the house while the rest of them became best buddies. No, I wasn't in a great state of mind.

But it's true, when things are that bad it can only get better. Once we got most things in the house in order and warmed up to each other along with the weather and I became my less paranoid self, I began to enjoy the fact that it only took me 15 minutes (10 if I ran) to get to uni, didn't have my dear Mum scrutinising how often I washed my jeans and could eat whatever and wherever I fancied. And now, life is great.