Privacy is a Privilege

Fact #3: What’s yours is theres baby – The dissemination of personal space.

Away at school we all got used to being able to speak as LOUD as we wanted to. Cherish the memories of being able to graze casually in the fridge at 1 a.m. without having to worry about the sleepers upstairs. Unfortunately, this new situation affects your parents just as much as it affects you. Reality is, you share a lot more, you give up privacy, but so do they. Family psychologist Susan Newman's research suggests that adjusting expectations and attitudes can significantly improve the time spent together and even make privacy an easier issue to deal with. I have found with my experience that little things can make a huge difference.

Survival Tip: Create your own bubble  

A) The Bedroom 

I have a relatively small room, but this small room is all I have to work with to maintain my private life. When you move back home – make your room somewhere that you LOVE. This may involve making some changes, moving some things around or doing some DIY to make it yours again. Get inspired from these easy tips here. 

SIDE NOTE: Please don’t let your parents try and clean your room for you.

B) The Common Space

As much as I love my bedroom, I also don’t like to see the same four walls all day. I personally enjoy seeing the rest of the house during the day. It may be difficult, but try to feel comfortable watching TV and hanging out with your parents. Establish some simple rules (or in my case ‘signals’) that enable you to be left alone, while being outside of your room. My signal for privacy from my parents generally revolves around me being focused on my laptop, reading, or not being chatty (this is an obvious one for my parents because I am known to never be quiet). 

*You will find your own ways to tell your parents you’re not in the mood to be social – just be gentle, they’re only biologically programmed to love you.

A Full 360°

September 2011: The first chapter of my new life at university. Freedom and independence were embraced, high school was behind me, and most importantly, I was now Parent-Free.

But lets fast-forward….

April 16, 2015: The day my home in Guelph was sold to someone else and no longer belonged to me. Where was my future home? It was my brand no-so-new childhood address. So after four years of leaps and bounds forward, I had just been sent right back to jail, with no jail-free card in sight.

Rest assured for me though, Pew Research Center claimed that I was not alone in my new found circumstances. A report showed that ¼ young adults in North America between the ages of 18-24 had returned to live with their parents after being independent. So if so many of us graduates were moving home, it clearly couldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be right?

Wrong.

I was forced back to the routine I felt I had outgrown in high school, in a room that I had outgrown even earlier. Nine months have passed since I entered the land of my haunting past, and I am here to tell you that it doesn’t always get easier. Through accepting the facts, I provide follow-up survival tips to get through something that can seem equivalent to hours of labour in childbirth. So lets kick things off with a simple fact and tip upon beginning your new adventure.

Fact #1: This is happening, there is no going back.

You’re moving back home, get over it. The first step to rehab is admitting that you have an addiction. This rule easily applies to moving home.

Survival Tip: Breathe 
Take a deep breath (and let it out). State out loud to yourself with confidence that you will be living in your childhood abode. This step may be repeated as many times as necessary until the statement no longer makes your stomach turn in knots. 

(And watch the most relevant movie..Post Grad!)