In my life, I have had times that I haven’t moved homes a lot and other times where I was moving constantly. Growing up, my parents bought their house before I was born and that is the house that they still have. So my first time moving was when I went to college. I lived in dorms for my first 2 years and I sublet a room in an apartment for the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.
But housing was only guaranteed for freshmen and sophomores, so I had to enter a housing lottery in my college to get housing after that. And my group got such a bad number that we knew there was no chance for us to get campus housing. I don’t remember exactly why we didn’t find an apartment off-campus together, but for my junior year of college, I got my first apartment. I lived there alone and I hated how isolated I felt. There were probably a few different reasons why I felt so lonely, and it didn’t help that the apartment never really felt like home to me.
So after that lease was up, I got an apartment with a friend. I only had 1 semester of college left, but I knew I was going to stay in LA so I didn’t think twice about signing a lease for a year. Since I had been moving every year, I probably thought at the time that I would be there for a year and then move on to another apartment. But my roommate and I renewed our lease and we gained another roommate. Then the original roommate moved out and I was back down to 1 roommate again. Then that roommate left and I had a few different roommates over the next few years. I was in that apartment for about 5 1/2 years and had more roommates than I can remember. And when my last set of roommates said they would be moving out, I knew I had to find a new place because I couldn’t keep searching for roommates all the time. And that’s when I found the house that I currently live in.
I lucked out when I found my house because it’s in a great location and the price was really low. I was suspicious about it when I found it, but I think the small size was stopping others from wanting to rent it. But it was perfect for me to be on my own and the price was less than what I was paying for a portion of my old apartment. So there was no question that it was the right house for me.
I was hesitant about living alone again because I really didn’t like it when I lived alone in my first apartment. And there was an adjustment period for me to be used to not having roommates around. But as time went by, I discovered how much I love living alone. I think part of why I hated it before was that so many of my friends were still living on campus and there was so much community around them. I didn’t have that. But when I moved into my house, I was several years out of college. I wasn’t feeling left out or missing something that my friends were getting. And the more comfortable I got living alone, the more I wanted my house to feel like home to me and not just a place I was renting.
And I feel like I have accomplished just that. I have made several changes to things in my house over the years to make it feel more adult or more like me. And there is no question that it feels like my home to me. And that’s good because I literally cannot afford to move. The rents in my neighborhood are significantly higher than what I pay. It can be double or triple what I pay to get a 1 bedroom apartment. And yes, those apartments may be bigger or have more features than my place has, but I can’t afford anything that expensive. I love my little house and I love how it is affordable for me to be here.
And it’s a good thing that I love where I live because this past weekend marked 10 years since I moved into my house! That’s a lot longer than so many people live in a rental. That’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere except in the house I grew up in. And for some reason, I have always thought about how often I’ve moved because of how much I moved in my first years in LA. But I’ve been in my house for 10 years and my apartment before that for over 5 years. So the majority of my time in LA has been in 2 places. The other 4 places I lived were just condensed into a very short amount of time.
I don’t expect to be living in my house for another 10 years, but I also don’t see myself moving out any time soon. I’m here until I can afford to buy a place or until I move in with a significant other. Even if I got a huge raise and had a lot more money, I wouldn’t leave my place until I buy something because I don’t see the need to spend more on rent than I currently pay. Yes, there are things that I would love to have where I live (a dishwasher and in-home washer/dryer top that list), but I have lived for 10 years without those things and I can keep living without them. And the things I would love to have are going on my list of what I want in a place when I buy it. But because I haven’t had as many amenities as I have in the past, that list is much shorter now and I have realized what I really need to improve my quality of life and what would just be fun and nice.
So here’s to 10 years in my current house and now I’m just curious how long I will end up living here until I move to the next place I hopefully can stay for at least a decade.
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