I’m feeling a little existential lately.
Call it stress, call it anxiety, call it feeling overwhelmed. Call it whatever you’d like – it’s all the above.
There are a few ingredients in this cacophonous crisis cocktail, but one stands out above the rest. The granddaddy of independence is upon me as I take a gigantic leap into life’s next great adventure: I’m moving out on my own.
For the first time ever, I won’t have a moving buddy. For the first time ever, I will be living by myself.
It’s taken 28 years, but I’m finally out on my own.
For the first 17 years of my life, I shared a bedroom with my older brother. As things go in large Irish Catholic families, all spaces were shared. Bathrooms and bedrooms didn’t belong to anyone individually, you were just thankful to have it.
Coming from a big family, it’s always hard to move away from them, though. When I packed up and moved to college, or across the country, or to my first apartment after college to the next apartment after that – each felt like a big step but I was never going to be alone in any of those moves.
Here’s a rundown of all my moves to this point:
Kennebunkport, ME to Chicago, IL
This was the easiest move of them all, but I’m sure chaotic for my parents. I was a little less than 2-years-old when it happened so I had no control over the situation. No heavy lifting, no removing doors to fit desks through them, no worrying if a trailer was going to unhook from the car and nearly cause a highway pileup accident. I just sat back and ate mush while everybody else did the work.
When I was 5, we moved to a new suburb and that’s where we are to this day. I didn’t have to do much lifting there either, but I had my Woody moving buddy with me at all times:
Suburban Chicago, IL to Columbia, MO
I lived with my best friend from home in college for all four years. Freshman year, we had bunkbeds and shared a bathroom with 10 other guys as well as a janitor who only used our floor’s bathroom out of 8 total floors to take care of his business.
Sophomore year of college, I moved into an apartment for the first time and finally got my own bedroom with a door as well as my own bathroom for the very first time. It took 19 years for that milestone to occur, however, I still had the shared living space to keep me company with my friends. Junior and senior year were the same.
I also brought my Sheriff Woody toy (not the big one pictured above, but a regular-sized Woody) with me to college and to every move since because it never felt right to me that Andy didn’t bring Woody to college with him in Toy Story 3, but I digress.
Columbia, MO/Suburban Chicago, IL to Boston, MA and Providence, RI
I lived and worked in Boston and Rhode Island for two summers to intern for the Pawtucket Red Sox. In Boston, I lived with my aunt and uncle and when I moved to Rhode Island, I lived in a bachelor pad apartment above the garage of an old friend of my dad’s. I became friends with their family and I spent loads of time with them, so I never felt alone. I actually really miss them, they were an awesome hang.
Providence, RI to Suburban Chicago, IL
From there, I moved back into the basement of my parents’ home in suburban Chicago as I looked for full-time work, found a job, looked for apartments, stopped looking for apartments due to a global pandemic, didn’t leave the house because of the global pandemic, and then found a new job over the course of a year and a half.
Suburban Chicago, IL to Chicago, IL
Six months into that job, I bought my first car and considered the idea of an apartment again. Now that lockdowns were lifted and I could spend more time with my friends in the city limits of Chicago, I wanted to be closer to the action. My brother started coaching football at Saint Xavier University and attended classes there too. So we moved in together nearby the university.
Me, my younger brother, one bathroom, and a third-floor 2BR apartment with no central air. We couldn’t get packages delivered to this apartment due to frequent theft. Did I also mention both of our cars were vandalized while living here too? But hey, it was my first apartment after college, my brother’s first apartment ever, and we stayed there for two years. Not as shabby as I made it sound.
Chicago, IL to Chicago, IL
From there, I moved even closer to the action into a 3BR apartment with one of my best friends. This apartment I wrote about in a blog from that summer about finding the perfect apartment. It was his first apartment after college and my first time having a sizeable space to spread out an office and a bedroom to two separate rooms since I work a hybrid schedule. It was a quick L-train ride to my in-office space and it had free street parking. It was also just a great time.
As things go though, I only lived in that apartment for 11 months. My friend moved in with his girlfriend and I had also racked up a not-so-pretty amount of credit card debt.
My options were limited: find a not-so-cheap studio to bide time in and make my debt worse or move back in with my parents to tackle my debt and help my mom as she prepared to have her hip replaced.
There really was only one option.
So here I am, nine months later. My mom’s hip is metal, I’m debt free, I got a raise at work, and I’m finally in a place where I can comfortably move out on my own. But that wasn’t the plan from the get-go when I moved back home.
There was a lot about moving home that was hard, despite my parents so easily allowing me to come back in. I moved into my sister’s old bedroom so I had a door to shut and a place to go to to be alone. I was moving back to our home that hadn’t looked like this since 1998: my parents, my older brother, and me. If only the Bulls were as good now as they were in 1998. At first, it was just the four of us and the adjustment began.
But as the nine months have progressed, all four of my siblings have since moved underneath the same roof again. I love my parents and my siblings to death and they know that, I make sure they know that, but I quickly found out that independence was a priceless commodity I had the last few years.
While not paying rent at my parents’ place, I sent a rent-sized payment to my credit card debt for a few months. I didn’t have to worry about buying my own groceries, but did spend money and sanity on my commutes to the city.
Every plan needed a plan of its own so I could logistically make it work. Going to a concert in the city on the weekend? Celebrating a friend’s birthday or engagement? Maybe just staying a little longer at the office to wait out traffic? Pack a bag with all the essentials, pay for overnight parking in a garage, and sleep on a couch. Again and again.
Every time I drove to the city to hang out and inevitably crash on my friends’ couches over the weekend, one song always ironically shuffled on as I approached the city on the Dan Ryan:
It’s this anthem about a suburban kid who just wants to break free; who feels like he has to escape his town to actually matter. It calls out the dullness of suburban life, while clinging to this dream of something better, somewhere else. I played all nine minutes of it every time, imagining the day I’d finally move back to the city to “get my life back on track.” But that was whenever away.
For the time being, I had to commute further for work and my friends. Like I said, the commute took a toll on me. Not only in having to pay about ~$20 per day to either take the train or drive and park, but in my mental and physical health as well.
To get to the office at the time that I like without traffic or a crowded train, my wake-up alarm is at 4:30 a.m. After 11 months of basically rising, showering, and training to work in under an hour when living in the city, my day started about three hours before work started just to get there. Not to mention the commute home where the rush hour traffic is never-ending on days I drove. On days I took the train, there’s added anxiety to make an express Metra train back to the burbs to ensure a smooth 50-minute commute compared to the 1 hour and 20-minute regular commute that makes all the stops.
This is the most accurate portrayal of each of these commutes:
But despite all of that, I paid off my debt in about 5 months back at home and I’ve started to actually stack up my paychecks since then. I started looking for apartments in February of this year and I continued to say things like “I need to get my life back on track.”
The same brother I lived with before was looking for places too for a while, but he wanted to sit on some cash after moving across the country and living paycheck to paycheck while coaching football in Boston.
I had checked out a few 1BR places before he and I made a plan to live together again, then once he decided he’d rather stay at home for a little longer, I was content with saving a bit more money myself until he was ready.
A couple weeks after that my youngest brother moved home from college and my sister started planning to move home as well. The week of St. Patrick’s Day, I toured then fired away an application at a 1BR that I really liked for a solid price in the city. I got the apartment and now all of a sudden, I’m two weeks away from moving in.
For the first time, the electric bill, the gas bill, the rent, the internet, the phone bill, and the parking pass are all my sole responsibility.
The crumbs on the floor, the hair in the drain, the dishes in the sink. They’re all going to be mine now.
I’m going to be alone. No moving buddy (besides Woody). Just me, my stuff that’s still mostly in boxes from 9 months ago, and an apartment.
Everybody’s said things like “oh, you’re going to love it!” or “The best time of my life was when I lived by myself!” and even “You can walk around naked!”
But none of that has really stuck with me. What I keep thinking about is this anxiety of when I said “I need to get my life back on track.”
When I first moved back home, I was angry with myself and at the world. I couldn’t believe I got myself into a situation where I had to move away from my friends and work because I couldn’t afford it. I felt like a bum.
But after nine months of living at home, I’ve realized my life was always on track.
As I wrap up, I’ll say this: everything happens for a reason and time spent with loved ones is always time well-spent.
In this time back at home, I’ve learned how to be better at my spending habits, budgeting, and what it will take to eventually own a home. I’ve also gotten the time to spend going to ballgames, concerts, bars, parties, and more with my family.
It’s been a decade since I first moved out for college. But after all these moves, my family and friends have been with me, guiding me on my track to this big move.
I was never off the track. Bent but not broken. Each moment has led me to moving out on my own after 28 years. I have my friends and family to thank for making sure I was in one piece by the time I got here.
This won’t be my last move. It might just be my last move out from home until I have a home of my own.
So, I am a little sad that I’m moving out on my own, but every experience has made me readier than ever.
To wrap up, I leave you with my favorite song by my favorite band with the lasting words of “I guess this is growing up.”
~DS
P.S.
There’s one other song I’d like to share that I found in my time home that helped calm me on my commutes, make me smile on sad days, and get through some low points. Enjoy, I hope it does the same for you!
The Danny Diaries 