If you're reading this then you surely know me in real life, and will therefore know I have recently escaped from the clutches of my parents' house and fled into the wild of young adulthood. My family's homestead, or as I like to call it, Freaky-Deaky-America-Church-Global-Warming-Is-Fake-Make-Sure-You-Lock-This-Sliding-Glass-Door-Before-You-Go-To-Bed-Lennie-Briscoe-Is-A-National-Treasure-Oh-And-By-The-Way-We're-Having-Carrabba's-For-Dinner-Tonight-What-Do-You-Want-Me-To-Get-You-I've-Had-The-Crab-Cakes-Before-They're-OK-Land, was harder to leave then I had originally anticipated. However, after a contentious, but rent free, 13 months living in the house I grew up in, I somehow manage to maneuver my way into a corporate job and make a living."Making a living" doesn't really mean anything, and while I make money and I am alive, I would hesitate to say that I am really "making a living". I'd say "eking out an existence" is a more accurate representation of what my life has become. Once you get your low-paying entry level corporate position, you make literally just enough money to pay rent and buy enough drinks to distract you from the realization that you make the roughly the same amount of money as someone who works full-time at a retail store in the mall. Until of course you run out of money a week and a half before your next paycheck and you sober up, and sit down at your computer and all of these realizations come instantly to the forefront of your mind.
I guess by this point in the post you've figured out the ugly truth. I am broke. Sure, I'm broke, you're broke- we're all broke! Well, when you say, "I'm broke," you don't really mean that. You mean that you have spent a lot of money in the past few days and your checking account is sagging. You've still got your savings, plus whatever money your parents slip into your coat pocket when you tell them you've got to go put gas in your car or whatever little scheme you've worked out to milk your parents for cash. However, when I say I'm broke, I mean I'm fucking broke. I mean that I'm about two more days of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches away from selling my 360. Well in all honesty I think I'm probably closer to clandestinely selling one of my roommates kidneys on the black market than selling my Xbox, but I digress.
The occasionally grim reality of life on your own, especially at the entry-level AA Trenton Thunder back-up catcher starting point where I'm at, is that you will run out of money. My life consists of the nauseating lows of poverty, broken up twice a month by the dizzying highs of a fresh paycheck. One paycheck; however, immediately disappears into the gaping maw of a small Asian man who had the foresight to buy a crappy brownstone back in the days when the streets of this town were, most likely, littered with the bloated corpses of dead children while crack addicts fought for control of city blocks against packs of wild dogs, or whatever else was going on here before that was so shockingly bad that the very fact normal civilization now exists here is reason enough to charge astoundingly high rent. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's retardedly expensive to live here in Hoboken and I'm not exactly sure why.
Moving out of your parents house is hard for other reasons as well. You don't realize all of the little things that you will miss, like table tops and garbage cans; shower curtains and silverware. All these things you never even knew existed (what is a mattress cover, really?) suddenly become exceedingly important. And the worst part is, you have to go out and buy it. I already knew about all the things I wanted to buy, and I didn't even have enough money for all that. Now we're making up new completely new products, like the Swiffer WetJet, and I have to buy them too.
But, I do suppose its not all bad. When I get home from work, no one is giving me the third degree with intrusive comments like, "how was your day?" or "are you going to eat dinner with us" or "I picked up and paid for your dry cleaning for you after work, even though it was 25 minute drive in the opposite direction for me." Instead, you get the compassionate silence of an empty apartment, the quiet introspection that comes with killing an invading army of ants with Windex, and that bewildering peanut brittle scent that comes wafting out of my roommate's bedroom.
I suppose I can sum up the real horror of life on your own in this way: Let's say one night you somehow accidentally urinate in your bed. You're so tired and you've got work in the morning, so you just throw a towel on it and keep on sleeping. Then you wake up, take a shower, go to work, share this story with not a single soul, and go about your daily life. Later you go home, maybe half-forget you pissed the bed, maybe you're half too lazy to take your sheets off and take them to the laundromat. If you do take it to the laundromat that Central American lady will know your horrible secret. Your only choice is to fall asleep again on the urine soaked bunk and wake up the next morning to do it all over again. Living on your own, this cruel farce could go on indefinitely. However, at your parents' house, there's only so many times your mom could walk past your room before curiosity and motherly instinct would compel her to change the sheets. Maybe she's not doing for you, maybe she's doing it for herself, or the resale value of the house, but Goddammit it gets done!
