A new start!

Well then, as luck would have it, within days of my last post, I found somewhere to live and my continued silence here has been as the result of my finally moving from my parents house!

Ok, so it's not what I had in mind and it's not anything like I imagined my life to be at this age but it's mine, I can afford it and at last I have my privacy and perhaps my sanity saved.

I have a room in a shared house, it's actually a beautiful, almost new, four bedroom house and a house that I could never hope to live in if I had to rent of buy the whole place, (you don't want to know just how much the one room is costing me!) it doesn't feel to much like I am living in one room to be honest, my room is very big (big enough to make a sleeping area and a separate living area, I have french doors to a small garden and a shower room next door which I only have to share with one other woman

There are four of us, two girls and two guys, myself, the other woman who is a beauty therapist, a geek and an engineer and thus far we all seem to get along just fine...just as long as the guys don't try and use our bathroom!

I've lived here almost two weeks now, I've tidied the place up some, courtesy of one or two mad dashes to Ikea, though I still have much to do to really make it feel like home but for now I love it, I love having my freedom back, I love having my own 'stuff' and I love feeling like a 50 year old instead of a bloody 15 year old!

I have had the odd moment of feeling lonely and a bit scared but 'N' is here most evenings at least and at last I feel like I have made some headway, the last two years have been a time I never want to visit again...and I never will. This is the first time I have lived alone (yes really) and it's the first time that I have been in the position where having a roof over my head doesn't depend in part on a man.

I like that feeling! I like it very much!

One day, somehow, I will have a whole flat/house but for now this is just fine, it's a first step to rebuilding my life and one thing is particularly notable, I haven't cried one single time in two weeks....and that's not something I have been able to say for a very long time, it used to be almost a daily event.

FREEDOM!!!! Yayyyyy.

Moving - Well that's the theory...

...but in practice it seems to be a whole other matter!

Ergh (yes, that's a technical term), I have to move within the next few weeks now and despite having spent better part of the last few months scouring the internet/estate agents/newspapers yada yada, I still can't find anywhere I can even consider affording.

It's utterly ridiculous, rents here are so high it's beyond me how anyone affords them, 50% of what I see runs into £1000's pcm quite literally and even the smallest studio flat is out of my price range. I knew that of course but I kept telling myself all the things others tell me "something will turn up", "you will work something out", etc. etc. Well nothing has turned up and I haven't worked anything out.....and believe me, I have tried...and some!

I have always been a firm believer in the 'where there's a will there's a way' principle but this time it just ain't happening.

And so I have capitulated and finally lowered my sights to renting just a room, I hate the thought of it. I know I might meet nice people, make new friends, see a little more of life but none of that compensates for the fact that at 50 I want/need some privacy. I have lived devoid of privacy for two years now, I am desperate to live a 'normal' life again, have my own space but it would appear wanting and having are not the same thing. Even one room is going to cost me in excess of £500 pcm and those are hard to find for various reasons, my age being the biggest.

Most flat/house shares are younger people (who haven't yet had a chance to screw their life as I have) and they (understandably) don't want to share with someone who is probably older than their parents. People my age it seems are usually more sorted (no shit) that I am and don't share houses.

Hey ho....it looks like I'm going to have to just suck it up and look happy, I have no other option unless lady luck suddenly springs a surprise...but let's face it, that's not gonna happen either.

None of this does anything for ones self esteem I might add.

Jeez....I owned my own flat at 19 yrs old and this is just absolutely nothing like where I anticipated my life would be at this stage......

Bum!