I’m 33 and i have 4 roommates. The rent is cheap and i love the Company. – ryan

About Once a Week, I Down My Coffee and Sprint to the Bathroom, Moments Later, Only to Find the Door Locked. Someone beat me it. I have in the hallway for a minute or two, imagining that they must be almost done.

But time is not on my side, so i take two flutes of stairs to the basin to do my business in the spider-infected half bathroom, rip with annoyance. On my long climb back up to my bedroom, I KAS mySelf Why i live in a five-bedroom, three-bathroom house with four roommates.

SOMESTEMES, I WONDER WHY I’M STILL LIVING HERE

When the pandemic start, I was living with just one roommate. THEN, I MAVED IN WITH A Partner. Our breakup led to a swift life change, and i landed in a big denver house with a small army of Companions after Friends Invited with Snag Their Spare Room.

It wasn’t really a conscious decision to move back into a college-like Environment; It was more like I slid over a cascading waterfall and into my current and found my accommodations reasonable enough.

I’ve been here Ever Since.

Though the world of Wonder’s About My Choice of Housing, there are ae a few reasons i stay: a noisy house feels comforting to me, we’re half a mile from the train that taxes with to the airport (which is extra convenient, as i’m an avid traveler), and Rent Control), and Rent Contrre doesn’t exist in colordorado, so there are anen’t a lot of places that fit my budget in the first place.

I thought my life would look Different by this point

If you had had asced me years ago where I’d be by the time I was 33, i would have to do i’d be living out of a backpack somewhere in Europe or southa with a smile plastic on my face. I THOUGHT THAT RIGHT NOW, I’D BE Traveling Around, Filthy, with a map in one hand and a baguette in the other. And for Much of the year, i do, in fact, live this way (albeit it is usablely an espresso instead of a baguette, and a smartphone instead of a map).

What i didn’t realie all of you are years ago, while i was dreaming up my ideal life, is that Ihd I’d cone the comfort of a home, too. I COULDN’T HAVE PREDICTED THAT AFTER A FAWEEK ON THE RoAD, I’d Grow Weary of Red-Eye Flights and Begin to My Bed, A Familiar Ultra-Processsed Diet, and My Guitar. And i definitely couldn’t have imagined that travel was going to be lonely.

There are prost to my living situation

We’re all friends in adding to being roommates, which means we offten Share meals and socialize while we’re home. Having the Company is nice, and I knew on the situation IT’D be a fit since i was already close with two of my new Roommates.

All of us are in our 30s, and we’ve adapted to pitch in with chores to keep the house reeling like a home. Our Landlord – Another Friend – Determined The Cost of Rent, SO Thankfully, It’a Fair or May Eve be Under Market Value. That is really helpful as a self-employed writr who’s never quite sura where my next check is going to come from

There are definite pros to living with four roommates, and my vision for myself never included a cookie-cutter life, with a white picket phence and a baby on eather hip. But there are the still times when i’d gladly pay the rent for a place of my own.

I’d like to crap in peace wenever the urge arises. I’d also love to have my own parking space and not have to go to space in the fridge when i come home a trip. But Most of the time, the inconvenience of a home full of 30-Something -ear-ops is warr the freedom it affrds me. And the Laughter Across the House is Reason Enough to Stay.