Living at home and why I don't understand it

A young woman I know recently grappled with a decision over her choice of colleges. She'd attended one here in Buffalo for her freshman year, but had decided that she wanted more than what was being offered. So she applied to a few other places, and, being the intelligent and accomplished student that she is, was accepted to just about all of them. Among these were three schools in Chicago.

She mulled her decision for months. Columbia? Loyola? UIC? I don't remember what her major was; I just remember feeling a sense of envy at how brightly this kid's future was shining. Chicago! Everyone who knows me knows how much I love that city and how I really do consider it my adopted hometown. The thought of being 19 and going to college there...man, how exciting! I thought it was a no-brainer, myself. She, however, had different thoughts on the matter. And her source of hesitation? Moving away from her mom.

What?

Okay, now...I love my mother as much as the next girl, but one thing I have never been able to understand is people who (a) continue to live with theirs beyond the standard 18-21 year-old stage and (b) people who freak out about having to move out of their parents' homes.

I think I was about 12 when I started fantasizing about the day I could finally pack my bags and get the hell out of that house and away from my parents. Like a prisoner doing time, I kept a mental tally on an imaginary wall, daydreaming about my eventual sweet freedom. Every time a rule was enforced, or I was grounded for some ridiculous thing, I'd curse them under my breath and flip through the Brand Names catalog picking out furniture for my future apartment. I'd think about moving to California, or Hawaii, or someplace as far as I could get. I went to my guidance counselor and asked for information on UCLA. What was her name? Mrs. Kardani I think. Anyway, I remember her telling me, "well, Sweetie, this is only junior high. Your high school will have that information." Now, of course, there was no internet, and finding information was not as easy as Googling it. And so I waited, and as soon as I got to high school I started plotting my escape for real.

My high school years were a nightmare. Now, okay, I know there are a lot of kids who had it WAY worse than I ever did. I had a roof over my head, I had three squares a day, and a guaranteed college education. What I had very little of, however, was privacy. And that's all I ever wanted. Just some privacy, and a little freedom to be myself. I wasn't asking to be allowed to stay out all hours of the night. I wasn't asking to be allowed to have boys in my bedroom. But my mother would routinely go through my things, throw away clothing she didn't like, snoop through my drawers, read my diary and my letters, and I was forbidden to lock my bedroom door. And there was no knocking. So it didn't matter what I was doing. I could be stark naked, and she could just walk right in.

"You have nothing to hide," she told me. But what she failed to understand was that it wasn't that I wanted to hide anything, I just wanted to be left the fuck alone sometimes. In my mother's defense, she was trying to ensure that I wasn't in there smoking my lungs out, but most of the time I wasn't looking for privacy to smoke; I wanted to be able to read, do homework, listen to music, draw, paint, talk on the phone, nap, or just stare off into space - alone and uninterrupted.

My dad was a tyrant, a lunatic, and generally insane. But at least he never barged in on me. He would always knock and say, "Are you decent?" At least he did one thing right.

As it turned out I didn't go to UCLA. My college choices ended up being a little closer to home, but I ultimately chose the one that was the farthest - about 500 miles away, nearly an 8-hour drive. And the sad part is, I didn't choose Franklin Pierce for its programs, or its academic reputation, or its campus life, or anything other than it was the furthest, of all my options, from my parents that I could get.

I think one of the main reasons I have to live alone and never got married or had children is because I am SO protective of my personal space, the very thought of having to share it with someone actually sends me into a panic. So to hear someone say, "Oh, I can't bear the thought of moving out of my folks' house" is so unbelievably foreign to me. I'm not knocking people who want to live at home forever; I just, from my experience and perspective, can't understand it. You mean there are people out there who like their parents so much that they actually VOLUNTARILY live with them? There are people whose parents are so non-invasive and easygoing that living with them isn't a constant source of stress and mental trauma? Damn. Even when I would come home for vacations, my mother and I would fight. It wasn't until my parents got divorced when I was 20 and my mother started living in a different place that we started getting along - for it was no longer a matter of me coming "home," but rather a visit to her apartment, where I was not an occupant, but a guest. The paradigm - and the rules - shifted at that point.

To this day she will tell me, "you are welcome in my home any time. You may stay with me as long as you like. But do not EVER think about moving in with me. It will not happen."

So if you tell me that you don't want to move out of your parents' house, or are moving back in with your parents, now you know why I'm making that face.