The benefits of living alone

From the moment I graduated from college, I knew that someday I would have to live alone …

I have always loved living with friends and roommates. But I began to long to return home to myself, to see what I wanted, without voting, to make questionable choices for dinner, without the risk of being mowed down. Last year I moved into the most comfortable apartment and I may never look back.

For a while, it was assumed that my boyfriend and I would probably live together as soon as the lease expired. We have already carried out premature cohabitation, riding the plague; and living together seemed like a natural next step. But since I moved to my current place, I can’t imagine leaving.

My apartment has an interesting setting. I live on one floor of a Brooklyn brown stone, which I have only for myself; my three roommates live on the other floors. We find it hard to see each other and it seems more like I live alone with the neighbors upstairs, which is absolutely ideal. It is also the first place where I felt completely at home and enjoy being alone. I love listening to my roommates walk past my door and I know no one will enter unannounced. I love that I don’t have to wait to take a shower or that I can bleach my hair at one o’clock in the morning while watching Project Runway. If I am overwhelmed by the world, my life can exist in the crowds around me, because there is only me there. I like to buy flowers for myself at the end of a busy week and diffused oil while I go to sleep.

Living with someone else is still not what I want, and I have concluded that if this is the last time I live without a partner, pets, or children, I want to nurture it. I want to make it even more of a refuge and remember it one day when I’m in bed with two big dogs and a partner. So all future moves are postponed. Now I’m going to buy more sunflowers for this weekend.