I have lived with my family for my whole life before moving to Finland.
Then, moving to Finland, I lived in a student house with other random mates that the housing company organized.
After graduating, my boyfriend and I moved to Helsinki and lived together because it was much more expensive to live alone in a bigger city, and when you are not a student anymore, the normal apartment is also more expensive because there is no sponsor from the government anymore.
After a year of living together, we realized this is not the time to live together yet; we needed more time to focus on our own self-development. Also, I have to say, my boyfriend has been taking care of me so well that I feel like I have become less independent. I remember when I decided to go study abroad at 30, I wanted to experience a more independent life from my family while experimenting with living on my own. Therefore, I felt like I was not ready.
I had been enjoying being on my own before, and living together required my attention on another person continuously naturally, also, my lifestyle and body clock were messed up easily because sometimes I need to adapt my boyfriend’s time, which seemed to make me easily get more anxious because of a lack of time to be alone and quiet for 100% focus on my matters. For that reason, I decided to move out to live in a studio near my boyfriend. Luckily, my boyfriend is a very understanding and supportive person, so he totally supported me during the house-seeking, move-out, and until now, still.
The feeling of living alone for the first time is… great 😀 I got my own room when living with my parents and in the student house before, but living totally alone is another level of self-care. You take care of every first setup, such as apartment seeking and checking as a whole (not a room), electricity contract, house insurance, internet, etc., every little thing in the house was decided and taken care of by you.
I have been excited for the whole month before moving here. I kept checking the apartment photos and its layout, considering how to organize the furniture and stuff (I even drew on it lol), thought about what to buy more, etc. I have to say it is not the moving that made me tired, but more about the excitement leading to doing too much (necessary and unnecessary) online shopping beforehand (lol).
Well, I think I have been waiting for so long to live alone 😀 It was exciting to see my own name on the apartment door when I first came and saw that they changed it into my name :D. Also, at the building entrance. It was also exciting to see that all the house insurance, electricity, and internet contracts are in my name (of course, it also means money gone :P). Furthermore, it is nice and calm to go shopping in the market for home stuff alone (yet missing my boyfriend whenever I had to carry heavy shopping bags, but I survived anyway :P). Moreover, when I woke up and could see the early sunrise, with some sunlight playing hide and seek behind the trees in front of my lovely windows and balcony, I knew that I had really chosen the right house for me.
However, it again reminds me how thankful I have my boyfriend’s accompany even though we are not living together anymore. He has always been the one helping me to pick up, carry, and assemble heavy furniture that, to be honest, I could not do myself. It reminds me how thankful I was when I first came to Finland to study, even when buying an office chair and the adjustable tables back then, he was also the one who helped me pick up and assemble. Without him, my life could have been harder.
I think my moving out even helped us to appreciate each other more, just as we expected from this separation, and this makes us happy 😀
While the family is expecting me to have family and kids, I am here, in my 30s, just separated from my boyfriend, enjoying my alone time, and having my mental focus back to write a blog post again after 6 months. Well, sometimes I wonder why I kept doing the opposite things from what people expected from me, but I think I have never really regretted anything that I have made a decision to do.
Cheers to my first time living alone in my life! 🥂✨
