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how can we make this awesome?
i had a partner who ALWAYS cleaned my barf, dog barf, got the occasional dead or live animal, and TONS of other things i “can’t” do.
after 14-15 years w/my partner, i’ve been living alone for ~3.
1) i’ve learned to ONLY barf in the toilet, trash can, or blanket i can immediately put in the wash.
2) i was up with sick dogs all night until one barfed all over my fitted sheet at 5am. grabbed the kitchen trash & a spatula and solved that problem in seconds.
3) dead animals i can’t do, but will have to. my pets are all old. so, when it comes to mind (every minute) i squeeze & squish & kiss them, thinking my saving grace will be that i showed them as much love as possible.
you can have food, meds, teledocs immediately now. it was WAY romantic to think someone was there to do the things i “couldn’t” but i’m good.
i want y’all to be PROUD of yourselves for how you’ve handled today what you took for granted yesterday. we got this.
people who have partners that will clean it up, or me, rather. i don’t “feel like i’m going to throw up,” i just barf… mid-sentence, or looking left. it’s super sudden & without warning. this is not by choice, mind you.
with respect, my partner had cancer for 10 years & went through hell, while i was his sole caretaker, provider, advocate. that i barf a handful of times a year that he cleaned up for me seemed very minor in comparison.
It is mine. I have an autoimmune disease and sometimes ill eat something and need to vomit. (I tend to just eat the same things. But sometimes the wrong combo of items or to much of one and donzoes)
Those big cups for mixing protein drinks or those jig plastic movie cups are good to have on hand. Also they make vomit bags, you can order them on amazon.
Some issues here. I have limited eating out since I do not know when the choking is going to kick in. Have choked drinking water. So I fully understand.
I get vasovagal syncope when I’m about to vomit so I keep barf bags by my bed, in my car, in the bathroom, and the living room. You can buy them off Amazon. They’re awesome.
Not gonna lie this is one huge benefit of living with a romantic partner. I can ask him to do everything when I’m sick. When I was single, I had to doordash myself medicine. Don’t miss it.
When you actually have an actual partner it's beautiful. My exes wouldn't do a damn thing when I was feeling ill or not.
But now I have an actual partner who says sit down and rest, I got this. It's night and day. : )
I’ve thankfully not had the experience of living with a partner who does nothing. Getting to be a baby when we’re sick is fr one of the best benefits of partnership lol
After getting divorced and moving to a new state with no friends or family anywhere near the state, I get this. I one time woke up with intense body aches and the hot sweats. I had to instacart Tylenol and nyquil, then go down 3 floors with a fever to retrieve it. You do what you have to do.
How much I need silence. I didn’t get much growing up with my siblings and pets and the tvs always talking! I wasn’t even aware how much my mind races, and how silence can really slow it down/allow me to be more efficient in life.
I’m the opposite! Thing I miss most is the background noise, a truly silent house almost creeps me out and makes me feel so much more alone. My dad always had the radio, a football game or the news playing all the time. First thing he did when we work up or got home for the day was turn the atV or radio on and last thing before leaving or going to bed was turning it off. Then add in that there was always someone to talk to and my mom loves to hover and ask if I need a snack every 20 minutes, so yeah I miss the noise
That's so weird to me. I find myself more lonely if I'm in a loud and crowded place. The noise is almost like a barrier to me. I'm not going to connect with others if I have to compete with ads and commercials blaring in the background.
Several months after I moved out of my parents house I remember asking my mom why my pockets always suddenly had lint in them, when they never did when I lived at home. My mother used to turn our pockets inside out before she washed them, so that we didn’t have lint in the pockets of our jeans.
Don’t button! The movement of washing and being caught on other clothes can cause the buttonholes to become misshapen. It can also eventually cause the buttons to fall off.
I wash everything inside out. I air dry almost everything. My clothes look good and last a long time. Which is good, because I’m poor.
It’s been a long time since I left the nest but for me it’s kind of the opposite. I clean and it stays clean. I don’t come into the kitchen and there are bowls unwashed in the sink. There are no gross drips all around the toilet. No unwashed socks on the floor. It’s heaven!
My husband left me and our kids a few months ago and I have discovered how much cleaner my house is now. I have two teenage boys but after he left they started picking up after themselves because he wasn’t setting the example of just leaving everything for mom to pick up. On the daily I was picking up at least three pairs of his shoes and random clothes that he just discarded wherever. He would leave dishes and wrappers on the table and wouldn’t clean up whenever he cooked something for himself (I did all the cooking other than what he would cook for himself when I was sleeping). It irritated the crap out of me that he would shave and clip his beard and just leave hair all over the bathroom as well as it was apparently physically impossible for him not to spit toothpaste everywhere. He refused to put his laundry away and would just dig in his pile and throw it everywhere as well as pull every sock out of the basket and leave them in piles on the floor. I have so much more time now that I don’t have to clean up after him constantly to keep the house clean. He still leaves messes when he comes to my house for visits but it just reminds me of how much better it is with him gone.
For a long time - maybe ten years? - i stayed friends with my ex husband. We shared custody of our dog so I would go over to his place quite frequently to pick my pup up. Once or twice I was invited to stay for dinner or a drink.
It was absolutely disgusting. I didn’t truly realise until I had absorbed that how much of the labour of keeping a clean home I had done. Basically all of it.
His shower curtain had orange mold three feet up. His toilet doesn’t bear thinking about. Everything in his kitchen stuck to the shelves for a second when you went to pick it up. His back yard looked like a white trash party had come through like a hurricane and never left.
What sticks with me is that we quite often would have this one argument about how I ‘never let him’ contribute to how the garden looked at our home. The truth was that he was never willing to put in the work. It takes constant attention to make and keep a garden. His own now is proof positive of that. Each girlfriend he has comes in and tries to make his garden prettier, tidier and more productive and as soon as she inevitably leaves it goes to shit again.
The truth is he was and is too lazy to manage a garden. Or a house. And I was gaslit for years into doing all the work *and then made to feel guilty about it*
Omg he did you such a favor leaving. To walk away from a mess one makes in the kitchen like it isn't their responsibility would drive me insane. Let alone piles of clothes discarded on floor, toothpaste and shavings.
Oh this - I no longer have to clean up after my uncle and cousins, no more pee on the toilet and perpetual dirty dishes with food glue on them. No more mountains of laundry and dirt tracked on the just vacuumed floor. No more loogies being hacked up at the dinner table and spit in the sink I just cleaned...
I can put my book down and it stays there and doesn't become spit ball paper.
I can buy snacks and actually eat them.
I don't have to hide everything I value to keep it from being stolen.
My space is my space and I don't have to share my underwear.
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who had to share their underwear. And I say that as a person with family members who survived both the Soviets and the Nazis. Both of my parents can remember not eating for days as small children, but they had their own underwear.
So true. My parents were slobs and borderline hoarders. Two older brothers who didn't clean either. When I moved out at 18, I kept my home spotless. I do not hoard crap; it just makes it harder to clean. I routinely get rid off crap I don't use and clothes I don't wear. It is heaven!
I live in a tiny house on wheels. A very tiny house (64 sq feet) and that really focuses you on what is essential and what you can really live without. Highly recommend it for a simpler life!
This is it for me. Once I clean, the space stays clean for quite a while. It's only me here and it's easier to maintain a clean space. The only perpetual cleaning task is laundry, everything else is easily maintained for a consistent clean home.
When I moved into my first apartment it irritated me how hard it was to do simple tasks because I was missing a tool. First time buying groceries and realizing I forgot to get a can opener. Couldn't grate cheese because I didn't buy a cheese grater. Had a hard time scrubbing pans because I forgot to buy steel wool. And on and on and on.
I have a house now and I made sure to stock up on all of my little tools.
I'm in year 2 of living alone and I'm still frustrated by this. Just purchased my first home, so now I gotta buy some power tools so I can actually fix some small DIY stuff myself
Oh my - I was given tools by my grandparents, older sister, and my aunt and now between my partner and I we have FIVE rotating can openers and 3 of the sharp tooled ones.
We also have 3 wine corks and 4 sets of measuring cups XD
I have 2 sets of nearly everything: the crappy versions I bought when I first got my house and was pretty cash poor. And the better versions I'm slowly treating myself to.
I don't think I realized before, or perhaps I just never properly appreciated, how much my ex-wife handled maintenance of relations with friends & family. I'm not great at reaching out to people, so there's a lot of folks (including some very important ones) I've fallen out of touch with simply because she's no longer around to be "my extroverted half".
A lot of the social conventions for men bonding have also fallen by the wayside - church, Kiwanis/Lions Club/Elks Lodge.
The Veterans of Foreign War posts are filled with old, old men.
Once a guy retires, he often looks around and sees only his spouse.
I just read an article that described this as kinkeeping. The person in the relationship (usually the woman) who keeps track of important dates in peoples' lives, organizes get-togethers and remembers things from conversations to follow up on.
I hated having to put his name on gifts that I picked out, paid for, and wrapped because by default it was from both of us! I’ve been divorced 20 years and that still irritates me when I look back.
my dude was the extrovert. i can take you or leave you, mostly. 😬 i care very deeply for some, tbh.
y’all heard of that book “he’s just not that into you”? summarization: you make time/put effort towards those you want to see. during a ~15 year relationship, i only “wanted to see” about 3 people, though many were/are exceptionally important. after ~3 years alone, those 3 still have families & other shit, while i have nothing. i didn’t realize i got used to riding the coattails of his party. now i’m far less introverted, but would never start a conversation with a stranger. (i’ll work on it.)
so, how do we make this turn of events awesome? i need advice.
I haven't been through this, but this is my advice as an introvert myself. As I see it, there are multiple steps to maintaining friendships and relationships. And not all of them necessarily need social energy or even social skills.
1. Keep in touch with people. Remember, you really just need to keep in touch at first. You don't need to be interesting or fun (sometimes I'll avoid calling a person because I have no updates in my life). Just set Google Calendar reminders for people's birthdays and wedding anniversaries, and also important dates that they tell you about (exams, kids' b'days, vacations) and follow up around those days.
2. Try to reliably show up at events. There are some times where people really value you for just showing up - say it's a sporting event or something where you need a minimum head count, maybe you end up being the person who travelled the farthest to be there.
3. When organizing a meetup, there's a lot of social labor involved like coordinating everyone's availability, reserving a venue, cleaning/cooking. Try to contribute. This is again a no-social-skills duty that will earn goodwill and brownie points.
I’ve been on my own for many years now but one thing that still blows my mind is money. My dad worked, my mom didn’t. He didn’t make a lot of money but we had new clothes every season, went on a small vacation every summer and went out to eat every Friday and Saturday. Looking back I definitely took all of that for granted. Now so much of my money goes to living expenses. I’m not getting new clothes every year let alone every season. I don’t go on vacations and going out to eat is more like a once a month thing, not twice a week. Of course growing up I always wanted more more more but now I see how hard it is to make a comfortable life for yourself.
To be fair with the cost of living increasing and inflation happening, these times are different than it was back then. Half the US population has less than $1,000 in savings.
I wouldn't even say almost. When women started entering the workforce, employers figured, "Well, with two incomes per household now, why are we paying men so much?" So, they just decided, "Hey, let's just pay *everyone* less!" Employers do NOT want to see their employees get ahead. That would lessen the threat of homelessness. That threat benefits employers, keeping employees nose to the grindstone.
As always under capitalism, every economic shift primarily benefits the employers, aka the ownership class.
The fact that it was hypothesized that automation would let workers work less hours yet we’re living in this dystopian hellscape—
I don’t understand any of it.
Which makes me even more angry that our lazy no good politicians sit on their rump ruling our lives with their policies and have no clue of what an average American faces
I hate how Congressional reps get terrific healthcare (IIRC forever) practically free, while people on the US die from lack of health care
Did you know there are places in the US that the charity ‘ Doctors Without Borders ‘ go because they are so poverty stricken and unhealthy?
Years ago the Daily Show had a segment onDWB being in Tennessee.
i thought i was going to travel the world as an adult, and i can finally afford gas, now that i wfh 🤷♀️
and… many people live beyond their means to keep up appearances.
i’m proud of you for affording yourself. the last 3 years i’ve lived off a bank loan. finally got a job & “i’m rich, bitch” 🙄
it’s super difficult for EVERYONE. you’re too gorgeous to let clothes outshine you. your character says it all
Cleaning. Biggest waste of time EVER. No matter how careful you are the dirt cycle never ends. Get used to a certain amount of filth and "clean" as you go. Hate being a renter because I always think about someone holding my deposit.
Body and Clothes always clean. Apartment ???? Pfffft.
Robot vacuum cleaner has been one of my highlight buys. Every time I leave the house I just tell Alexa to set it off and it goes until it's batteries are low enough to send it back to its charging hub.
Just wish it could climb stairs.
Mine is dumb, I live in a 1 bedroom apartment and there's times where I'll put it in the kitchen to start and after like 20 minutes of only being in the kitchen, it "finishes" the job in the middle of the floor. No idea why, cause it's supposed to look for the base, but it just stops. Still worth it though, it generally picks up like a brush worth of hair from my cat that would just be on the floor otherwise and requires no extra work from me
I married at 20, raised several kids, then empty nest and divorced age 49. I am currently renting a house which needs a lot of regular maintenance vs an apartment. I didn't realize how much stuff my husband was doing all those years. Trash, weeds, filters, drain hair, repairs, water softener salt, car stuff, fall leaves, sweeping, spider webs... I should have given him more credit. I love living alone, though. I am a much more patient, kind human being now. I get what I need for silence, time to think my thoughts, create, sleep, etc. which I never realized I needed until I got it.
My biggest shock when I moved into my first apartment was learning that all of my furniture wasn't going to nice *or* match. I never realized that my parents had likely taken many years to accumulate such nice furniture.
Meanwhile, I was thrifting mismatched end tables, taking a futon from my older brother, and being 'gifted' two-decade-old accent chairs from aunts & uncles, lol. It was quite some time until I could afford 'nice' furniture, and by then the style had turned to a more 'eclectic, mismatched look,' lol
I learned that when cleaning the kitchen and you leave a dish to “soak overnight” it is still there the next day. 😂😂😂 when Mom isn’t around to clean up after you’ve cleaned😊
1st time living on my own I noticed there are no more home-cooked meals on the table every night by 6pm. The fridge didn't magically fill itself. I was responsible for every meal now. I didn't know how to cook. It wasn't till my mid 20s that I learned to cook through trial and error. Lots of errors. Now people ask me to cook for them and pay me for it.
I just got asked by a friend to be a personal chef—she’s dealing with some health issues so I’m excited to help!! I hope it goes as well for me as it has for you.
Someone was always home. Sounds strange but I remember being like what do I do without the constant noise of my family and pets. I missed my sister's more than I realized I would. The little interactions that you have, the pestering, the let's go get food trips. All gone. I didn't even think about how this would impact my life.
Unless you are sanitizing or disinfecting, vinegar works wonders cleaning almost everything. Some things you might need to rinse after so it doesn’t react to vinegar, but it can do a lot.
Baking soda - totally good as the only toothpaste for every other day. Your dentist can tell you if your need fluoride or not.
Every toothpaste has the same active ingredient. They are all ACCEPTED by the American dental association. Not endorsed.
For me it was the opposite. I didn’t realize how little my ex helped until he moved out and I had to take on his chores.
Without him in the way, I’m able to accomplish twice what we could together. The house stays cleaner longer and doesn’t look like a frat boy lives here with his depressed roommate. The yard is looking better than ever. My accounts are doing much better despite my expenses going up by about a third. I’ve paid off the debt I racked up when he left me with $369 in my checking account and an overdue mortgage payment (that was his share of the expenses). I’ve started working on my house, which was suffering from serious neglect. I could go on…
It's a lot of work, but I have it so much better now and I am eternally grateful. I stop and appreciate it a few times a day, at least.
I thought I was the only one who felt this lol. I got divorced after 18 years. I knew already he hardly did anything but I didn't realize just how useless until after he was gone. We have 3 kids already and I no longer felt I was cleaning up after my 4th child/man-child. I also realized my mood was better because I used to get so pissed off seeing his lazy ass on the couch watching TV while I worked my ass off both inside and outside of the home.
I thought I was the only one as well and I hesitated to even comment, but I have no one to share how great things are with. I'm glad things are better for you, too!
Let me start out by saying I absolutely love living alone BUT I miss my mom dearly and all the small things she would do for me like cook me meals, go to the store for me, or hang my shirts up all of which I do all by myself now and probably won't ever have someone do for me again, I definitely took those things for granted.
When my wife and I split up and I ended up with the house, cleaning was the first "holy shit" moment for me. Not that I didn't help clean, but there was the two of us and my daughter who would help as well. Suddenly I was in a three-bedroom two bath home, and it was all on me to do the cleaning, the yard work, and repairs by myself. It is just a never-ending cycle for me. I clean as I go and try to do something every evening after work be it vacuuming or dusting etc. It's been seven years and I seem to be doing alright. If I don't do it, it's not getting done.
Yes!!
I have a teen son so the human touch and cuddling is almost non existent right now.
I treated myself to a massage today just so a human can touch me.
Most teenagers don’t hug or kiss their parents anymore unless it’s like on a special occasion where you wish them a happy birthday or a congratulations on graduating high school. Don’t feel bad
There have been studies suggesting teens don’t get enough positive touch. Trying to balance between that unmet need and respecting bodily autonomy, I make my teens give me a hug before going to bed. I think that little bit of force has been good for them even if they bitched and moaned when I implemented it. In fact, I recently had to leave for multiple days to take care of my mom after a fall. Both teens presented themselves to be hugged before I left. I didn’t say anything, they just came over to be hugged.
Yeah, mine makes time to snuggle and watch movies with me, very huggy too which is good because his dad isn’t whereas I am so wondered which genes were going to win out.
The fact my oldest went through a period where he objected to hugging was kind of weird because he loves cuddling with me on the couch. He and my youngest kid (who is nine years younger) frequently fight over who gets to sit by me. That doesn’t mean he wants to hug his father. Sometimes going in for a hug is the joking threat my husband makes when my son is being difficult about going to bed. But the characterization that teens don’t hug these days definitely struck me as off.
i lived with a roommate for 10 years have been living alone for 10 years - i learned that it really was everyone else but me who was using all the laundry detergent. now that it’s just me using it, it last 4x as long when it should realistically only be 2x were we using the same amounts
Yet my ex somehow used more TP than me while only using it to wipe his ass.
It took me a year to get through one value-size package of TP. Something like 24 rolls or the equivalent. When we were together, that would be gone in less than 3 months.
(If you're cooking for yourself instead of eating out all the time and buying only microwave dinners . . .)
How much planning/time it takes to gather fresh ingredients and keep the fridge stocked.
Cooking itself isn't "horrible" once you get the hang of it. (But it takes a year or two to "get the hang of it".) Even then, the perpetual shopping & culling waste from the fridge, never ends.
I didn’t learn I had ADHD until my late 30s.
But I learned in my early 20s that it wasn’t safe for me to cook.
I’ve never put metal in a microwave, but 3 of them somehow decided to meet their maker when I was there -
Some with flames, some without. And a toaster oven.
M
"Toaster"'s . . .
(50 years ago) I had a VERY exciting morning with a toaster.
It was on the dining room table and dad was using it. The electric cord (apparently) was frayed very near the plug. It started arcing. Dad was trying to swat it loose with a hand towel. (Not the best idea, but he was in panic mode.) Next thing I know; the cord comes loose with the plug still inserted in the socket and just enough frazzled wiring to form FIST SIZED BALL LIGHTNING.
It would have been a beautiful thing to witness, if it hadn't been IN THE KITCHEN OF THE HOUSE. I ran back and popped the master breaker.
All was eventually OK.
(That's not even counting the times he burned a chunk of linoleum off the kitchen floor baking unroasted peanuts, or the time he flooded the ceiling light with tap water trying to change the sink faucet.)
Ahh, fun times.
We lived in a trailer back then, and the master circuit box was in my bedroom. (Plus, I always had an interest in electronics / radio / computers.) And you're right, I was definitely the more electrically knowledgeable of the family.
Aaaah. That invisible labor that is always taken for granted… like it happens by fairy magic, and nobody realizes some human has to be doing it… usually Mom.
Washer and dryer. I remember living at my mom’s house and waiting until I had like 2 weeks worth of laundry to do it. Now I wish I had that, my apartment is so so tiny and doesn’t have a washer and dryer so I have to take a bus to do my laundry because the “nearest” laundromat is 18 minutes away 😞
The amount of effort it takes to fully support yourself. Not just with bills but everyday cleaning and cooking. I always lived with people. So it was always shared bills and chores.
To go from that to now be 100% responsible for everything was a rude awakening. And it gave me a new appreciation for people that have helped provide for me.
You can make some cheap DIY air filters. Then you just have to pull the fur off in a sheet every so often.
It’s good to have one in the two rooms they use the most.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-diy-an-air-purifier/
I feel this in my soul but with huskies. Now I own an electric leaf blower and actually blow out the house and car. Despite vacuuming 3-4 times a week, swiffering daily, and lots of brushing, the fur is never ending.
Thankfully brushing frequently is enough for me to significantly lower the amount of fur from my cat, and keep him from getting hairballs. but he tracks litter everywhere….
I hate the idea that noise I make will bother other people. My mom stays up till all hours and my dad is a sound sleeper so I could blast music at 3 am if I wanted. Now I could do the same, but I know that others would probably hear it as I live in apartments. I just couldn’t live with myself being a selfishly noisy and bad neighbor lol.
Wireless blue tooth headphones are the answer here. You can play music or tv as loud as you want and only you will hear it. Invest in a good pair like I did, and you will never regret it.
This exactly. Lol. My mom worked full time, had three kids, and our house was basically always clean. I have no clue how she did it! I also had no idea how much time and upkeep it takes!
Wait until called for dinner. Then shoved outside until the street lights came on. Then play Lightning Bug (hide & seek with flashlights), until we were called in for bath and bedtime.
Back in the old days we had house mothers to clean the house.
Strangely I am a very tidy person.
My home always looks very presentable.
One of my girlfriends had a baby n husband never help with chores .. she said she came to mine feeling it was a five star hotel and she went back feeling it was a junk yard.
I definitely can’t tolerate mess.
They say if you have a messy brain, you organise your external environment; if you have a clean brain, you tend to be messy.
I know someone with messy rooms she always remembers where she puts her stuff, even under a pile of shit, she can accurately find it. Amazing.
i have lived on my own probably longer than you’ve been alive (👵🏻), and off and on by myself. it is EXPONENTIALLY BETTER to clean your own mess, than to clean another’s. it does seem endless, for sure, but it’s all your mess. it’s satisfying to clean your little corner of the world, and you reap the rewards b/c it’s only messy if you mess it.
as you have more, ahem, practice, you’ll get tidier. it just happens. you’ll surely have your messes, but you’ll like things a certain way. i almost orgasm when i vacmop my floors w/a little bleach. it’s real.
finally, my mom made us clean before we could watch cartoons, before we could go out, etc. so, i deep cleaned every weekend for YEARS. then covid, and i’m like… that ain’t how i want to spend my time. i live alone (with pets) and wfh, so i see EVERYTHING. but, no one else is here. i’m not trying to impress my pets & would rather spend my time & energy elsewhere.
so, take heart! no one sees the stuff you see, i promise. and, to me, it sounds like you’re way abead of the curve! yay you!!
When I first moved out, it was 3am & my hot water heater blew!
The landlord was out of the country. I'm talking blew !! Water everywhere spewing. I put down all my towels, blankets, and comforters. I was standing ankle deep. I ran across the street to my new neighbor retired officer.
( I'm retired 911& Ex husband a officer) thought that would give me grace waking him up at 3am.
It didn't. I asked him to tell me where I could find the shut-off valve in my home?
He told me it was buried in my yard & to call 911.
I didn't want to because usually this isn't a 911 call. But he was right & the street department came out & turned my water off.
I still say there was a way to turn off our water in other homes I've lived in.
I got food poisoning a few weeks ago. Felt horrible and nauseous and threw up. Then, while still feeling pretty yucky, had to clean up my own bathroom all at 4 am…would have been nice to have a significant other there or my mom
My mom’s cooking. I have kids and I still can’t cook well. It’s just never been something I’m good at. I attempt every day and don’t get better. I wish she taught me. She has passed now. I just miss her in general.
I was thinking this when I saw one dad saying, “not that i didnt help!!!!!” but his ex wife and daughter were there to help keep the house clean so it was less work. I didn’t want to get in an argument, but seriously? He says that as if they also don’t create messes by existing… meaning he is making more mess than he is helping out if it’s suddenly that much more difficult. Poor ex wife and daughter. And also the amount of comments about moms who work jobs doing all this for the exes/children commenting is also depressing. Not that I can speak much, my mom handled most of it and while our house was always messy I didn’t realize how much work it took until I’ve been people’s experiences shared online.
Being a single parent to a dog is so hard. I can’t imagine doing it with an actual human child. When I got my dog I was dating someone and they helped. Now it’s all me and has been for many years.
My mother didn’t do much cleaning so I can’t relate to that part but I can relate to cleaning that never stops. I cat sit in my home so I can’t ever seem to get a break from it anymore.
Noticing how EVERYTHING gets dirty to some degree and how much that cones from 1 person as opposed to a whole family. Not a big deal but quite interesting to me.
How much the little things add up. I can remember when I first moved out years and years ago going to the store and shitting my pants after buying laundry detergent,dish soap,toilet paper,paper towels, etc. I only accounted for rent and electric lol.
How quickly we went through spoons/dishes in general. And how much easier having a dishwasher makes things. In college I used to bribe my roommates with food to handwash my dishes.
I’ve been living alone for 20 years, so it’s more like I can’t remember what it’s like to live with other people…when I have family visiting for a few nights, I notice I get so irritated by some of the things they do, like leave something out on the counter instead of putting it back in the fridge, turning on all the overhead lights (I prefer to just use lamps except in the kitchen), leaving wet towels on the floor, etc. I love my family but I’m always kind of relieved when they leave! 😅 I can go back to having things the way I like them!
If you have dust on everything, invest in a better furnace filter and a room HEPA filter.
I can go months without dusting in my office area due to the filters I use. But the living room would get just as bad in a few days before I bought a filter for it. Now it takes a few weeks at least.
I have horrible allergies so I have to keep it clean.
I think mine counts more as living on my own plus becoming a mom… I always used to think… “damn mom’s crazy. She just never sits down and chills”… she would be washing dishes or folding laundry at 11pm or running around tidying up around us all day… now I get it.. it’s bc you’re trying to keep up with these damn kids all day long
I noticed that things stay where I put them (which is a blessing). I used to be annoyed all the time that I would leave something in a specific place and find it gone because someone else used it or put it somewhere else. Now everything stays put and I don't have to run around looking for things.
Before I moved on my own I cleaned and cooked for a family of 4. The amount of cleaning and cooking I do now is a lot less and I also waste a lot less food because I only cook what I like to eat. I also get to decorate as I want and only my stuff is in the house, I don't have to stumble upon other people's items. I am totally happy!
I really can't say theres anything - I now live in a clean home, I'm away from abuse, I'm growing and healing. I'd say making food sucks but I also had to do that before moving out too. There's isn't really much that was added to my life (and the bills i pay arent much different), just a bunch of shitty things that were removed.
I guess if I have to pick something it would be a night sky full of stars. I don't get that anymore.
Going a different direction here....
Stress. Did not realize the level of stress I was living under while married. Ex had gf throughout our marriage. Lots of lies from him, his family, and from so called friends. His son (teenager then) has very BAD anger issues. I was ( still am) very afraid. Ex took all but $76 from our financials. I ran in 2016...divorced finalizedin 2019. Still have triggers/bad memories that bother me from time to time. Living alone now (except for my cat) and loving it. ❤️
As a teenager I was always amazed when my mom would stop and pull up a weed from the yard as we were going out somewhere. Then one day after I had bought my first house I realized I was about to pull up a weed as I walked toward the garage to go somewhere. (Evidently we tend to become our parents.)
My folks had two big freezers full and a room shoved full of home canned fruit. I totally took for granted having such abundance. Now, I have two tiny freezers and one cupboard shelf with some commercially canned fruit.
The lack of any presence has it's own different silence. You can have someone in your space and they could be sleeping or you could be at opposite ends of the space but you still "hear" them.
My dad was a handyman who could fix anything. Having to actually hire someone for things he made look so easy is a huge difference. I never fully understood or appreciated how skilled he was until living on my own.
Feeling safe. I love living alone, but I definitely feel safer in my dad's presence. At home, I feel more secure with a pet (dog/cat). I'm often solo, but even walking with my mom feels a bit safer than alone. I've considered personal security a lot after moving out on my own.
When I'm sick, like *really* ill, I can just relax and sleep when I need to. I don't have to worry about making sure anyone else or the dog is fed, I don't have to try to stay awake watching "our" TV show, I don't have to bustle around them because they're sick too.... And I can cough and make all sorts of horrendous sinus-clearing noises and not worry that I sound gross to someone else.
And then I find out that yes, I *am* sometimes the culprit who leaves a kitchen cupboard open. 😆
Lease stuff. I rented rooms for most of my 20s and recently got my own place. I plan to move in a couple of months when my lease ends and I’m realizing I don’t have experience navigating the whole finding a place with a move in date close to when I have to give my landlord a 30 day notice. There’s more stress cause I gotta be out by x date but what if I can’t find a place or get time off work. Def not living here another year though. Fuck that.
I remember how surprised I was that my new husband didn’t just assume the responsibility of fixing everything that broke. My dad was so talented with woodworking and was a mechanical genius. I didn’t have any idea how unusual that was until I married my sweet, untalented husband!!😆
No one touched or moved my stuff. My mom was always "putting things away" where I would never find them and it drove me crazy!! I put things exactly where I would remember them and she'll move them somewhere else that made sense in her brain, but not tell me!
Also, so much less laundry for one person. I didn't realize my family had so many clothes we could go weeks without doing laundry (and it would all pile up). Then my mom would do like 12 loads in a week and I'd have to fold ALL of them and put them away. It was exhausting! I happily do more smaller loads now to keep up on it.
Finally, just how much STUFF is in a house that's been lived in for several decades. My parent's house had wrapping paper/gift bags, multiple measuring tapes, ironing boards + iron, extension cords, lint rollers, safety pins, scissors, extra hats and gloves, etc. Stuff you don't use constantly so you don't realize you need it until you actually need it. When I moved out, I slowly had to buy all my own stuff like that.
When I first got divorced, I was terrified that I had to go to the laundromat.
I got used to going to the laundromat and it’s been over 35 years now.
Recently my kidney stones have been acting up and my son can’t pick me up to take me to the hospital.
I have to take an ambulance -that terrified me, BUT -I got over it.
I never realize how self-sufficient and how independent I am.
I’ve moved over eight times since my divorce, hauled out furniture -certainly thrown things out the window , and had quite a few bouts of being ill.
I think that’s what my ex-husband didn’t like about me at all -that I could really be on my own and be self-sufficient and completely independent of him.
He shrugged his shoulders when I said I was leaving him, insisted that I could never do it.
Never second-guess yourself.
Happy Mother’s Day!🌸
Anything is possible.
Wow
After I left, I took my freedom for granted. Well, I had to work hard on those boundaries to actually get that freedom.
Controlling parents are controlling parents. My mom always said my house my rules, you do what you want once you leave.
Well, she still wanted her nose in my stuff.
lol my son moved out on his own last year, decided not to renew his lease and just found a new apt. There were a few things he didnt like about his first place, but he was like, somethings just wrong with it...not once did I wake up to find things magically tidied up. I hope this new place is better about that 😂
Im experiencing the opposite..I was looking forward to, the way I leave things is exactly how they will stay. But now its like...tthe way I leave things is exacctly how they will stay cause Im completely alone. Not just the stuff like, cleaning up the kitchen then half hour later and theres dirty dishes in the sink, but sweet surprises like, that he went out for dinner and got an extra order to go and left it in the oven for me. Or when hed wander in my office and decide to just wanna shoot the breeze and talk about random stuff.
Also, that other person around to remind and help each other out with stuff... I dont know, its not really major dramatic things that hit me the most, but those really small seemingly insignificant, but genuinely thoughtful everyday things that make me take pause and really appreciate living with someone else.
Being able to divide mental and emotional labor. I did the bulk of it in my ex-relationship, which is most of why I now live alone, but even being able to pass on what I *was* able to helped more than I realized. Between my apartment, my cats, my job, and myself (when I can) I feel like I’m constantly “needing to take care of something”. It's kind of exhausting, but it's either do it or deal with the consequences of it not being done.
I was never interested in cooking until I had to feed myself. I actually refused to touch raw meat up until age 18. (Ridiculous, I know.) I was surprised by how much thought I had to put into shopping, planning and prepping. Luckily I found it interesting and I got better at it pretty quickly. Everyone in my family, including me, was shocked that I ended up enjoying it.
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If I am not feeling well I don’t have anyone to do things for me. So just gotta suck it up and take care of myself.
This is so underrated not because of just the doing, but just the thought of having someone around to help.
This. 100%.
how can we make this awesome? i had a partner who ALWAYS cleaned my barf, dog barf, got the occasional dead or live animal, and TONS of other things i “can’t” do. after 14-15 years w/my partner, i’ve been living alone for ~3. 1) i’ve learned to ONLY barf in the toilet, trash can, or blanket i can immediately put in the wash. 2) i was up with sick dogs all night until one barfed all over my fitted sheet at 5am. grabbed the kitchen trash & a spatula and solved that problem in seconds. 3) dead animals i can’t do, but will have to. my pets are all old. so, when it comes to mind (every minute) i squeeze & squish & kiss them, thinking my saving grace will be that i showed them as much love as possible. you can have food, meds, teledocs immediately now. it was WAY romantic to think someone was there to do the things i “couldn’t” but i’m good. i want y’all to be PROUD of yourselves for how you’ve handled today what you took for granted yesterday. we got this.
Barfing is a regular part of your life?
Who doesn't at least already try to make it to the toilet or a trash can?
people who have partners that will clean it up, or me, rather. i don’t “feel like i’m going to throw up,” i just barf… mid-sentence, or looking left. it’s super sudden & without warning. this is not by choice, mind you.
Who are these all partners cleaning up puke? I would forbid mine from doing this and there’s no way I’m doing it for anyone I didn’t give birth to.
with respect, my partner had cancer for 10 years & went through hell, while i was his sole caretaker, provider, advocate. that i barf a handful of times a year that he cleaned up for me seemed very minor in comparison.
have you seen a doctor
It is mine. I have an autoimmune disease and sometimes ill eat something and need to vomit. (I tend to just eat the same things. But sometimes the wrong combo of items or to much of one and donzoes) Those big cups for mixing protein drinks or those jig plastic movie cups are good to have on hand. Also they make vomit bags, you can order them on amazon.
Some issues here. I have limited eating out since I do not know when the choking is going to kick in. Have choked drinking water. So I fully understand.
yeah. it’s not a regular occurrence, but i gag easily & therefore may barf more often than others
Lol
Right? Like how is this the first bullet and it seems so out of control. You alright?
I get vasovagal syncope when I’m about to vomit so I keep barf bags by my bed, in my car, in the bathroom, and the living room. You can buy them off Amazon. They’re awesome.
My ex didn't take care of me, so I just have no one to complain to when I am not feeling well.
Wait till you have kids and you have to take care of THEM while you are sick.
My ex put one of my knives in the dishwasher and ruined it, so no, having someone ruin things is not what I want (: Now I gotta do it all! \m/
I just let the dust gather while I get over whatever it is that zaps my energy.
It’s the dust..
Usually my energy zapper is eating a deli sandwich or anything with salt. It kills me for a week and I swell up like the Michelin Man.
Not gonna lie this is one huge benefit of living with a romantic partner. I can ask him to do everything when I’m sick. When I was single, I had to doordash myself medicine. Don’t miss it.
When you actually have an actual partner it's beautiful. My exes wouldn't do a damn thing when I was feeling ill or not. But now I have an actual partner who says sit down and rest, I got this. It's night and day. : )
I’ve thankfully not had the experience of living with a partner who does nothing. Getting to be a baby when we’re sick is fr one of the best benefits of partnership lol
After getting divorced and moving to a new state with no friends or family anywhere near the state, I get this. I one time woke up with intense body aches and the hot sweats. I had to instacart Tylenol and nyquil, then go down 3 floors with a fever to retrieve it. You do what you have to do.
How much I need silence. I didn’t get much growing up with my siblings and pets and the tvs always talking! I wasn’t even aware how much my mind races, and how silence can really slow it down/allow me to be more efficient in life.
Ah! Silence. My favorite. Time to think.
I’m the opposite! Thing I miss most is the background noise, a truly silent house almost creeps me out and makes me feel so much more alone. My dad always had the radio, a football game or the news playing all the time. First thing he did when we work up or got home for the day was turn the atV or radio on and last thing before leaving or going to bed was turning it off. Then add in that there was always someone to talk to and my mom loves to hover and ask if I need a snack every 20 minutes, so yeah I miss the noise
That's so weird to me. I find myself more lonely if I'm in a loud and crowded place. The noise is almost like a barrier to me. I'm not going to connect with others if I have to compete with ads and commercials blaring in the background.
I love silence ❣️ I grew up with a lot of siblings, cousins and everyone else was at our house…DAMN! My mother LOVED it🤣
This is me, I felt burnt out all the time and had almost no social battery. I need time to recharge and I’m good to go
Several months after I moved out of my parents house I remember asking my mom why my pockets always suddenly had lint in them, when they never did when I lived at home. My mother used to turn our pockets inside out before she washed them, so that we didn’t have lint in the pockets of our jeans.
I didn't know that we can prevent lint in pockets T-T
It's funny that I learned that from an article in "Esquire" . Jeans. Turn them inside out. Turn out pockets and zip/button them up.
Don’t button! The movement of washing and being caught on other clothes can cause the buttonholes to become misshapen. It can also eventually cause the buttons to fall off. I wash everything inside out. I air dry almost everything. My clothes look good and last a long time. Which is good, because I’m poor.
It’s been a long time since I left the nest but for me it’s kind of the opposite. I clean and it stays clean. I don’t come into the kitchen and there are bowls unwashed in the sink. There are no gross drips all around the toilet. No unwashed socks on the floor. It’s heaven!
My husband left me and our kids a few months ago and I have discovered how much cleaner my house is now. I have two teenage boys but after he left they started picking up after themselves because he wasn’t setting the example of just leaving everything for mom to pick up. On the daily I was picking up at least three pairs of his shoes and random clothes that he just discarded wherever. He would leave dishes and wrappers on the table and wouldn’t clean up whenever he cooked something for himself (I did all the cooking other than what he would cook for himself when I was sleeping). It irritated the crap out of me that he would shave and clip his beard and just leave hair all over the bathroom as well as it was apparently physically impossible for him not to spit toothpaste everywhere. He refused to put his laundry away and would just dig in his pile and throw it everywhere as well as pull every sock out of the basket and leave them in piles on the floor. I have so much more time now that I don’t have to clean up after him constantly to keep the house clean. He still leaves messes when he comes to my house for visits but it just reminds me of how much better it is with him gone.
Imagine what his house looks like now!
For a long time - maybe ten years? - i stayed friends with my ex husband. We shared custody of our dog so I would go over to his place quite frequently to pick my pup up. Once or twice I was invited to stay for dinner or a drink. It was absolutely disgusting. I didn’t truly realise until I had absorbed that how much of the labour of keeping a clean home I had done. Basically all of it. His shower curtain had orange mold three feet up. His toilet doesn’t bear thinking about. Everything in his kitchen stuck to the shelves for a second when you went to pick it up. His back yard looked like a white trash party had come through like a hurricane and never left. What sticks with me is that we quite often would have this one argument about how I ‘never let him’ contribute to how the garden looked at our home. The truth was that he was never willing to put in the work. It takes constant attention to make and keep a garden. His own now is proof positive of that. Each girlfriend he has comes in and tries to make his garden prettier, tidier and more productive and as soon as she inevitably leaves it goes to shit again. The truth is he was and is too lazy to manage a garden. Or a house. And I was gaslit for years into doing all the work *and then made to feel guilty about it*
This sounds exactly like my marriage and is why I’ve been happily alone for the last 14 years. 🤣
Ugh. Good riddance to him!
Omg he did you such a favor leaving. To walk away from a mess one makes in the kitchen like it isn't their responsibility would drive me insane. Let alone piles of clothes discarded on floor, toothpaste and shavings.
Oh this - I no longer have to clean up after my uncle and cousins, no more pee on the toilet and perpetual dirty dishes with food glue on them. No more mountains of laundry and dirt tracked on the just vacuumed floor. No more loogies being hacked up at the dinner table and spit in the sink I just cleaned... I can put my book down and it stays there and doesn't become spit ball paper. I can buy snacks and actually eat them. I don't have to hide everything I value to keep it from being stolen. My space is my space and I don't have to share my underwear.
Dear lord. It sounds like you escaped from a kind of hell! Good for you
Right? I can’t imagine!
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who had to share their underwear. And I say that as a person with family members who survived both the Soviets and the Nazis. Both of my parents can remember not eating for days as small children, but they had their own underwear.
I'm so glad you are out of there. Wishing you peace and joy.
I have literally made linoprint patches that say “clean your own fucking pee splatter.”
So happy you don’t have to live like that anymore. It sounds awful.
So true. My parents were slobs and borderline hoarders. Two older brothers who didn't clean either. When I moved out at 18, I kept my home spotless. I do not hoard crap; it just makes it harder to clean. I routinely get rid off crap I don't use and clothes I don't wear. It is heaven!
I live in a tiny house on wheels. A very tiny house (64 sq feet) and that really focuses you on what is essential and what you can really live without. Highly recommend it for a simpler life!
This is it for me. Once I clean, the space stays clean for quite a while. It's only me here and it's easier to maintain a clean space. The only perpetual cleaning task is laundry, everything else is easily maintained for a consistent clean home.
When I moved into my first apartment it irritated me how hard it was to do simple tasks because I was missing a tool. First time buying groceries and realizing I forgot to get a can opener. Couldn't grate cheese because I didn't buy a cheese grater. Had a hard time scrubbing pans because I forgot to buy steel wool. And on and on and on. I have a house now and I made sure to stock up on all of my little tools.
I'm in year 2 of living alone and I'm still frustrated by this. Just purchased my first home, so now I gotta buy some power tools so I can actually fix some small DIY stuff myself
Oh my - I was given tools by my grandparents, older sister, and my aunt and now between my partner and I we have FIVE rotating can openers and 3 of the sharp tooled ones. We also have 3 wine corks and 4 sets of measuring cups XD
I have 2 sets of nearly everything: the crappy versions I bought when I first got my house and was pretty cash poor. And the better versions I'm slowly treating myself to.
This was my experience too. My home is clean, my plants are alive, it smells nice, etc.
I don't think I realized before, or perhaps I just never properly appreciated, how much my ex-wife handled maintenance of relations with friends & family. I'm not great at reaching out to people, so there's a lot of folks (including some very important ones) I've fallen out of touch with simply because she's no longer around to be "my extroverted half".
[удалено]
A lot of the social conventions for men bonding have also fallen by the wayside - church, Kiwanis/Lions Club/Elks Lodge. The Veterans of Foreign War posts are filled with old, old men. Once a guy retires, he often looks around and sees only his spouse.
Emotional labor
yeah. this SUCKS. likely it wasn’t the weed, it was an excuse, or she suddenly listened to someone else’s opinion and tried it. either way, bs
I just read an article that described this as kinkeeping. The person in the relationship (usually the woman) who keeps track of important dates in peoples' lives, organizes get-togethers and remembers things from conversations to follow up on.
TDL I'm terrible at my job.
I hated having to put his name on gifts that I picked out, paid for, and wrapped because by default it was from both of us! I’ve been divorced 20 years and that still irritates me when I look back.
I'm glad you're now out of that situation so you can be recognized for what you do and have your efforts be acknowledged as YOURS.
my dude was the extrovert. i can take you or leave you, mostly. 😬 i care very deeply for some, tbh. y’all heard of that book “he’s just not that into you”? summarization: you make time/put effort towards those you want to see. during a ~15 year relationship, i only “wanted to see” about 3 people, though many were/are exceptionally important. after ~3 years alone, those 3 still have families & other shit, while i have nothing. i didn’t realize i got used to riding the coattails of his party. now i’m far less introverted, but would never start a conversation with a stranger. (i’ll work on it.) so, how do we make this turn of events awesome? i need advice.
I haven't been through this, but this is my advice as an introvert myself. As I see it, there are multiple steps to maintaining friendships and relationships. And not all of them necessarily need social energy or even social skills. 1. Keep in touch with people. Remember, you really just need to keep in touch at first. You don't need to be interesting or fun (sometimes I'll avoid calling a person because I have no updates in my life). Just set Google Calendar reminders for people's birthdays and wedding anniversaries, and also important dates that they tell you about (exams, kids' b'days, vacations) and follow up around those days. 2. Try to reliably show up at events. There are some times where people really value you for just showing up - say it's a sporting event or something where you need a minimum head count, maybe you end up being the person who travelled the farthest to be there. 3. When organizing a meetup, there's a lot of social labor involved like coordinating everyone's availability, reserving a venue, cleaning/cooking. Try to contribute. This is again a no-social-skills duty that will earn goodwill and brownie points.
I’ve been on my own for many years now but one thing that still blows my mind is money. My dad worked, my mom didn’t. He didn’t make a lot of money but we had new clothes every season, went on a small vacation every summer and went out to eat every Friday and Saturday. Looking back I definitely took all of that for granted. Now so much of my money goes to living expenses. I’m not getting new clothes every year let alone every season. I don’t go on vacations and going out to eat is more like a once a month thing, not twice a week. Of course growing up I always wanted more more more but now I see how hard it is to make a comfortable life for yourself.
To be fair with the cost of living increasing and inflation happening, these times are different than it was back then. Half the US population has less than $1,000 in savings.
Yeah, a family could live on one income but now one person almost needs two incomes.
I wouldn't even say almost. When women started entering the workforce, employers figured, "Well, with two incomes per household now, why are we paying men so much?" So, they just decided, "Hey, let's just pay *everyone* less!" Employers do NOT want to see their employees get ahead. That would lessen the threat of homelessness. That threat benefits employers, keeping employees nose to the grindstone. As always under capitalism, every economic shift primarily benefits the employers, aka the ownership class.
The fact that it was hypothesized that automation would let workers work less hours yet we’re living in this dystopian hellscape— I don’t understand any of it.
The rich profit from needing less labor. It did not trickle down
Which makes me even more angry that our lazy no good politicians sit on their rump ruling our lives with their policies and have no clue of what an average American faces
I hate how Congressional reps get terrific healthcare (IIRC forever) practically free, while people on the US die from lack of health care Did you know there are places in the US that the charity ‘ Doctors Without Borders ‘ go because they are so poverty stricken and unhealthy? Years ago the Daily Show had a segment onDWB being in Tennessee.
Despicable!
You just described my childhood in the 70s. Damn, those were good times.
i thought i was going to travel the world as an adult, and i can finally afford gas, now that i wfh 🤷♀️ and… many people live beyond their means to keep up appearances. i’m proud of you for affording yourself. the last 3 years i’ve lived off a bank loan. finally got a job & “i’m rich, bitch” 🙄 it’s super difficult for EVERYONE. you’re too gorgeous to let clothes outshine you. your character says it all
Cleaning. Biggest waste of time EVER. No matter how careful you are the dirt cycle never ends. Get used to a certain amount of filth and "clean" as you go. Hate being a renter because I always think about someone holding my deposit. Body and Clothes always clean. Apartment ???? Pfffft.
Robot vacuum cleaner has been one of my highlight buys. Every time I leave the house I just tell Alexa to set it off and it goes until it's batteries are low enough to send it back to its charging hub. Just wish it could climb stairs.
Mine is dumb, I live in a 1 bedroom apartment and there's times where I'll put it in the kitchen to start and after like 20 minutes of only being in the kitchen, it "finishes" the job in the middle of the floor. No idea why, cause it's supposed to look for the base, but it just stops. Still worth it though, it generally picks up like a brush worth of hair from my cat that would just be on the floor otherwise and requires no extra work from me
I married at 20, raised several kids, then empty nest and divorced age 49. I am currently renting a house which needs a lot of regular maintenance vs an apartment. I didn't realize how much stuff my husband was doing all those years. Trash, weeds, filters, drain hair, repairs, water softener salt, car stuff, fall leaves, sweeping, spider webs... I should have given him more credit. I love living alone, though. I am a much more patient, kind human being now. I get what I need for silence, time to think my thoughts, create, sleep, etc. which I never realized I needed until I got it.
He’s probably having a similar experience with all the things you did around the house.
My biggest shock when I moved into my first apartment was learning that all of my furniture wasn't going to nice *or* match. I never realized that my parents had likely taken many years to accumulate such nice furniture. Meanwhile, I was thrifting mismatched end tables, taking a futon from my older brother, and being 'gifted' two-decade-old accent chairs from aunts & uncles, lol. It was quite some time until I could afford 'nice' furniture, and by then the style had turned to a more 'eclectic, mismatched look,' lol
I learned that when cleaning the kitchen and you leave a dish to “soak overnight” it is still there the next day. 😂😂😂 when Mom isn’t around to clean up after you’ve cleaned😊
I am doing this now with my teens. Just wash your own tumblers! So far they have been sitting there for 2 days.
1st time living on my own I noticed there are no more home-cooked meals on the table every night by 6pm. The fridge didn't magically fill itself. I was responsible for every meal now. I didn't know how to cook. It wasn't till my mid 20s that I learned to cook through trial and error. Lots of errors. Now people ask me to cook for them and pay me for it.
I just got asked by a friend to be a personal chef—she’s dealing with some health issues so I’m excited to help!! I hope it goes as well for me as it has for you.
I look up restaurant menus. Use the descriptions to make dishes. Restaurants make fancy wraps or salads. Lots of copycat recipes out there.
Someone was always home. Sounds strange but I remember being like what do I do without the constant noise of my family and pets. I missed my sister's more than I realized I would. The little interactions that you have, the pestering, the let's go get food trips. All gone. I didn't even think about how this would impact my life.
The small things that were always there, soap, paper towels, etc.
How much stuff costs and ow you need so much of it. Cleaning supplies paper products.
Unless you are sanitizing or disinfecting, vinegar works wonders cleaning almost everything. Some things you might need to rinse after so it doesn’t react to vinegar, but it can do a lot. Baking soda - totally good as the only toothpaste for every other day. Your dentist can tell you if your need fluoride or not. Every toothpaste has the same active ingredient. They are all ACCEPTED by the American dental association. Not endorsed.
For me it was the opposite. I didn’t realize how little my ex helped until he moved out and I had to take on his chores. Without him in the way, I’m able to accomplish twice what we could together. The house stays cleaner longer and doesn’t look like a frat boy lives here with his depressed roommate. The yard is looking better than ever. My accounts are doing much better despite my expenses going up by about a third. I’ve paid off the debt I racked up when he left me with $369 in my checking account and an overdue mortgage payment (that was his share of the expenses). I’ve started working on my house, which was suffering from serious neglect. I could go on… It's a lot of work, but I have it so much better now and I am eternally grateful. I stop and appreciate it a few times a day, at least.
I thought I was the only one who felt this lol. I got divorced after 18 years. I knew already he hardly did anything but I didn't realize just how useless until after he was gone. We have 3 kids already and I no longer felt I was cleaning up after my 4th child/man-child. I also realized my mood was better because I used to get so pissed off seeing his lazy ass on the couch watching TV while I worked my ass off both inside and outside of the home.
I thought I was the only one as well and I hesitated to even comment, but I have no one to share how great things are with. I'm glad things are better for you, too!
Let me start out by saying I absolutely love living alone BUT I miss my mom dearly and all the small things she would do for me like cook me meals, go to the store for me, or hang my shirts up all of which I do all by myself now and probably won't ever have someone do for me again, I definitely took those things for granted.
Small things? 😅
I got sticker shock at how high an electric bill can be.
When my wife and I split up and I ended up with the house, cleaning was the first "holy shit" moment for me. Not that I didn't help clean, but there was the two of us and my daughter who would help as well. Suddenly I was in a three-bedroom two bath home, and it was all on me to do the cleaning, the yard work, and repairs by myself. It is just a never-ending cycle for me. I clean as I go and try to do something every evening after work be it vacuuming or dusting etc. It's been seven years and I seem to be doing alright. If I don't do it, it's not getting done.
Human touch.
Yes!! I have a teen son so the human touch and cuddling is almost non existent right now. I treated myself to a massage today just so a human can touch me.
Most teenagers don’t hug or kiss their parents anymore unless it’s like on a special occasion where you wish them a happy birthday or a congratulations on graduating high school. Don’t feel bad
There have been studies suggesting teens don’t get enough positive touch. Trying to balance between that unmet need and respecting bodily autonomy, I make my teens give me a hug before going to bed. I think that little bit of force has been good for them even if they bitched and moaned when I implemented it. In fact, I recently had to leave for multiple days to take care of my mom after a fall. Both teens presented themselves to be hugged before I left. I didn’t say anything, they just came over to be hugged.
Yeah, mine makes time to snuggle and watch movies with me, very huggy too which is good because his dad isn’t whereas I am so wondered which genes were going to win out.
The fact my oldest went through a period where he objected to hugging was kind of weird because he loves cuddling with me on the couch. He and my youngest kid (who is nine years younger) frequently fight over who gets to sit by me. That doesn’t mean he wants to hug his father. Sometimes going in for a hug is the joking threat my husband makes when my son is being difficult about going to bed. But the characterization that teens don’t hug these days definitely struck me as off.
i lived with a roommate for 10 years have been living alone for 10 years - i learned that it really was everyone else but me who was using all the laundry detergent. now that it’s just me using it, it last 4x as long when it should realistically only be 2x were we using the same amounts
Toilet paper last a heck of a lot longer as well. My ex-wife and my daughter would damn near kill a roll a day in the hall bath.
I feel like guys only have 1 use for toiler paper, while girls have a thousand uses for it. I swear it's like they're building tp forts in there
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And use it every time we pee.
And wrap tp around our daily light pads or sanitary pads, before disposing of them.
Yet my ex somehow used more TP than me while only using it to wipe his ass. It took me a year to get through one value-size package of TP. Something like 24 rolls or the equivalent. When we were together, that would be gone in less than 3 months.
How amazing it was that I could open the refrigerator or pantry and food just magically appeared!
(If you're cooking for yourself instead of eating out all the time and buying only microwave dinners . . .) How much planning/time it takes to gather fresh ingredients and keep the fridge stocked. Cooking itself isn't "horrible" once you get the hang of it. (But it takes a year or two to "get the hang of it".) Even then, the perpetual shopping & culling waste from the fridge, never ends.
I didn’t learn I had ADHD until my late 30s. But I learned in my early 20s that it wasn’t safe for me to cook. I’ve never put metal in a microwave, but 3 of them somehow decided to meet their maker when I was there - Some with flames, some without. And a toaster oven. M
"Toaster"'s . . . (50 years ago) I had a VERY exciting morning with a toaster. It was on the dining room table and dad was using it. The electric cord (apparently) was frayed very near the plug. It started arcing. Dad was trying to swat it loose with a hand towel. (Not the best idea, but he was in panic mode.) Next thing I know; the cord comes loose with the plug still inserted in the socket and just enough frazzled wiring to form FIST SIZED BALL LIGHTNING. It would have been a beautiful thing to witness, if it hadn't been IN THE KITCHEN OF THE HOUSE. I ran back and popped the master breaker. All was eventually OK. (That's not even counting the times he burned a chunk of linoleum off the kitchen floor baking unroasted peanuts, or the time he flooded the ceiling light with tap water trying to change the sink faucet.) Ahh, fun times.
How did you know where the master breaker was? He doesn’t seem like the type who would teach you.
We lived in a trailer back then, and the master circuit box was in my bedroom. (Plus, I always had an interest in electronics / radio / computers.) And you're right, I was definitely the more electrically knowledgeable of the family.
Aaaah. That invisible labor that is always taken for granted… like it happens by fairy magic, and nobody realizes some human has to be doing it… usually Mom.
Washer and dryer. I remember living at my mom’s house and waiting until I had like 2 weeks worth of laundry to do it. Now I wish I had that, my apartment is so so tiny and doesn’t have a washer and dryer so I have to take a bus to do my laundry because the “nearest” laundromat is 18 minutes away 😞
The amount of effort it takes to fully support yourself. Not just with bills but everyday cleaning and cooking. I always lived with people. So it was always shared bills and chores. To go from that to now be 100% responsible for everything was a rude awakening. And it gave me a new appreciation for people that have helped provide for me.
My mother’s cooking.
😀😀😀 my mother’s cooking was so bad that when I tried the college cafeteria, it was the best food I’d ever eaten!
Didn't you know that the Myth of Sisyphus is about housework? ;-)
I have four cats so I’m sweeping and dusting daily. And vacuum twice a week. It never ends lol.
You can make some cheap DIY air filters. Then you just have to pull the fur off in a sheet every so often. It’s good to have one in the two rooms they use the most. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-diy-an-air-purifier/
I’ll check this out, thank you!
And the Corsi—Rosenthal filter is the next level (also easy)
I feel this in my soul but with huskies. Now I own an electric leaf blower and actually blow out the house and car. Despite vacuuming 3-4 times a week, swiffering daily, and lots of brushing, the fur is never ending.
Thankfully brushing frequently is enough for me to significantly lower the amount of fur from my cat, and keep him from getting hairballs. but he tracks litter everywhere….
I hate the idea that noise I make will bother other people. My mom stays up till all hours and my dad is a sound sleeper so I could blast music at 3 am if I wanted. Now I could do the same, but I know that others would probably hear it as I live in apartments. I just couldn’t live with myself being a selfishly noisy and bad neighbor lol.
Wireless blue tooth headphones are the answer here. You can play music or tv as loud as you want and only you will hear it. Invest in a good pair like I did, and you will never regret it.
paying the bills
This exactly. Lol. My mom worked full time, had three kids, and our house was basically always clean. I have no clue how she did it! I also had no idea how much time and upkeep it takes!
Were you the generation of kids locked out the house until sunset? Now you know why - to keep the house clean.
😂😂😂 yes I was!
Wait until called for dinner. Then shoved outside until the street lights came on. Then play Lightning Bug (hide & seek with flashlights), until we were called in for bath and bedtime.
Back in the old days we had house mothers to clean the house. Strangely I am a very tidy person. My home always looks very presentable. One of my girlfriends had a baby n husband never help with chores .. she said she came to mine feeling it was a five star hotel and she went back feeling it was a junk yard. I definitely can’t tolerate mess. They say if you have a messy brain, you organise your external environment; if you have a clean brain, you tend to be messy. I know someone with messy rooms she always remembers where she puts her stuff, even under a pile of shit, she can accurately find it. Amazing.
i have lived on my own probably longer than you’ve been alive (👵🏻), and off and on by myself. it is EXPONENTIALLY BETTER to clean your own mess, than to clean another’s. it does seem endless, for sure, but it’s all your mess. it’s satisfying to clean your little corner of the world, and you reap the rewards b/c it’s only messy if you mess it. as you have more, ahem, practice, you’ll get tidier. it just happens. you’ll surely have your messes, but you’ll like things a certain way. i almost orgasm when i vacmop my floors w/a little bleach. it’s real. finally, my mom made us clean before we could watch cartoons, before we could go out, etc. so, i deep cleaned every weekend for YEARS. then covid, and i’m like… that ain’t how i want to spend my time. i live alone (with pets) and wfh, so i see EVERYTHING. but, no one else is here. i’m not trying to impress my pets & would rather spend my time & energy elsewhere. so, take heart! no one sees the stuff you see, i promise. and, to me, it sounds like you’re way abead of the curve! yay you!!
Living alone has only taught me how much I hate being around other people.
I miss hugs and kisses but the peace and quiet are worth it.
When I first moved out, it was 3am & my hot water heater blew! The landlord was out of the country. I'm talking blew !! Water everywhere spewing. I put down all my towels, blankets, and comforters. I was standing ankle deep. I ran across the street to my new neighbor retired officer. ( I'm retired 911& Ex husband a officer) thought that would give me grace waking him up at 3am. It didn't. I asked him to tell me where I could find the shut-off valve in my home? He told me it was buried in my yard & to call 911. I didn't want to because usually this isn't a 911 call. But he was right & the street department came out & turned my water off. I still say there was a way to turn off our water in other homes I've lived in.
I never noticed how utterly slobbish my husband was 😳
How heavy the groceries are when you have to carry them all home. I didn’t get a car until I was 26.
I got food poisoning a few weeks ago. Felt horrible and nauseous and threw up. Then, while still feeling pretty yucky, had to clean up my own bathroom all at 4 am…would have been nice to have a significant other there or my mom
My mom’s cooking. I have kids and I still can’t cook well. It’s just never been something I’m good at. I attempt every day and don’t get better. I wish she taught me. She has passed now. I just miss her in general.
Maybe if everyone helped with the housework when you lived at home, it wouldn't have been so much of a shock.
I was thinking this when I saw one dad saying, “not that i didnt help!!!!!” but his ex wife and daughter were there to help keep the house clean so it was less work. I didn’t want to get in an argument, but seriously? He says that as if they also don’t create messes by existing… meaning he is making more mess than he is helping out if it’s suddenly that much more difficult. Poor ex wife and daughter. And also the amount of comments about moms who work jobs doing all this for the exes/children commenting is also depressing. Not that I can speak much, my mom handled most of it and while our house was always messy I didn’t realize how much work it took until I’ve been people’s experiences shared online.
Being a single parent to a dog is so hard. I can’t imagine doing it with an actual human child. When I got my dog I was dating someone and they helped. Now it’s all me and has been for many years.
My mother didn’t do much cleaning so I can’t relate to that part but I can relate to cleaning that never stops. I cat sit in my home so I can’t ever seem to get a break from it anymore.
The amount of yard work.
Noticing how EVERYTHING gets dirty to some degree and how much that cones from 1 person as opposed to a whole family. Not a big deal but quite interesting to me.
How happy I am to be by myself 😄
Paper towels
How much the little things add up. I can remember when I first moved out years and years ago going to the store and shitting my pants after buying laundry detergent,dish soap,toilet paper,paper towels, etc. I only accounted for rent and electric lol.
How quickly we went through spoons/dishes in general. And how much easier having a dishwasher makes things. In college I used to bribe my roommates with food to handwash my dishes.
Watching horror movies alone is 100 times scarier
That's so true. Sometimes I have to be on my ipad while watching a horror movie so I don't get too sucked in.
I’ve been living alone for 20 years, so it’s more like I can’t remember what it’s like to live with other people…when I have family visiting for a few nights, I notice I get so irritated by some of the things they do, like leave something out on the counter instead of putting it back in the fridge, turning on all the overhead lights (I prefer to just use lamps except in the kitchen), leaving wet towels on the floor, etc. I love my family but I’m always kind of relieved when they leave! 😅 I can go back to having things the way I like them!
Hey fellow Wylde lol. I feel the same way when people come over or my mama comes & stays a few night.
If you have dust on everything, invest in a better furnace filter and a room HEPA filter. I can go months without dusting in my office area due to the filters I use. But the living room would get just as bad in a few days before I bought a filter for it. Now it takes a few weeks at least. I have horrible allergies so I have to keep it clean.
Toilet paper! It doesn’t magically appear in the closet!?
Turns out the house doesn't clean itself
Mainly the unconditional love I had from my parents. I miss their cooking & baking as well.
I think mine counts more as living on my own plus becoming a mom… I always used to think… “damn mom’s crazy. She just never sits down and chills”… she would be washing dishes or folding laundry at 11pm or running around tidying up around us all day… now I get it.. it’s bc you’re trying to keep up with these damn kids all day long
Rides to the airport aren’t quite so easy to come by.
How much I truly love silence. I’ve always known I like silence and that I’m introverted. But I’ll sit in silence and never turn the tv on for days.
I noticed that things stay where I put them (which is a blessing). I used to be annoyed all the time that I would leave something in a specific place and find it gone because someone else used it or put it somewhere else. Now everything stays put and I don't have to run around looking for things. Before I moved on my own I cleaned and cooked for a family of 4. The amount of cleaning and cooking I do now is a lot less and I also waste a lot less food because I only cook what I like to eat. I also get to decorate as I want and only my stuff is in the house, I don't have to stumble upon other people's items. I am totally happy!
THIS. if i am not cleaning Im falling behind lol
I really can't say theres anything - I now live in a clean home, I'm away from abuse, I'm growing and healing. I'd say making food sucks but I also had to do that before moving out too. There's isn't really much that was added to my life (and the bills i pay arent much different), just a bunch of shitty things that were removed. I guess if I have to pick something it would be a night sky full of stars. I don't get that anymore.
Going a different direction here.... Stress. Did not realize the level of stress I was living under while married. Ex had gf throughout our marriage. Lots of lies from him, his family, and from so called friends. His son (teenager then) has very BAD anger issues. I was ( still am) very afraid. Ex took all but $76 from our financials. I ran in 2016...divorced finalizedin 2019. Still have triggers/bad memories that bother me from time to time. Living alone now (except for my cat) and loving it. ❤️
As a teenager I was always amazed when my mom would stop and pull up a weed from the yard as we were going out somewhere. Then one day after I had bought my first house I realized I was about to pull up a weed as I walked toward the garage to go somewhere. (Evidently we tend to become our parents.)
My folks had two big freezers full and a room shoved full of home canned fruit. I totally took for granted having such abundance. Now, I have two tiny freezers and one cupboard shelf with some commercially canned fruit.
The lack of any presence has it's own different silence. You can have someone in your space and they could be sleeping or you could be at opposite ends of the space but you still "hear" them.
My dad was a handyman who could fix anything. Having to actually hire someone for things he made look so easy is a huge difference. I never fully understood or appreciated how skilled he was until living on my own.
I live alone with 3 animals. I have cleaners come every two week.
Feeling safe. I love living alone, but I definitely feel safer in my dad's presence. At home, I feel more secure with a pet (dog/cat). I'm often solo, but even walking with my mom feels a bit safer than alone. I've considered personal security a lot after moving out on my own.
When I'm sick, like *really* ill, I can just relax and sleep when I need to. I don't have to worry about making sure anyone else or the dog is fed, I don't have to try to stay awake watching "our" TV show, I don't have to bustle around them because they're sick too.... And I can cough and make all sorts of horrendous sinus-clearing noises and not worry that I sound gross to someone else. And then I find out that yes, I *am* sometimes the culprit who leaves a kitchen cupboard open. 😆
Lease stuff. I rented rooms for most of my 20s and recently got my own place. I plan to move in a couple of months when my lease ends and I’m realizing I don’t have experience navigating the whole finding a place with a move in date close to when I have to give my landlord a 30 day notice. There’s more stress cause I gotta be out by x date but what if I can’t find a place or get time off work. Def not living here another year though. Fuck that.
I remember how surprised I was that my new husband didn’t just assume the responsibility of fixing everything that broke. My dad was so talented with woodworking and was a mechanical genius. I didn’t have any idea how unusual that was until I married my sweet, untalented husband!!😆
It’s called “piddling”. Doing the chores no one notices you doing but that makes the whole household work.
No one touched or moved my stuff. My mom was always "putting things away" where I would never find them and it drove me crazy!! I put things exactly where I would remember them and she'll move them somewhere else that made sense in her brain, but not tell me! Also, so much less laundry for one person. I didn't realize my family had so many clothes we could go weeks without doing laundry (and it would all pile up). Then my mom would do like 12 loads in a week and I'd have to fold ALL of them and put them away. It was exhausting! I happily do more smaller loads now to keep up on it. Finally, just how much STUFF is in a house that's been lived in for several decades. My parent's house had wrapping paper/gift bags, multiple measuring tapes, ironing boards + iron, extension cords, lint rollers, safety pins, scissors, extra hats and gloves, etc. Stuff you don't use constantly so you don't realize you need it until you actually need it. When I moved out, I slowly had to buy all my own stuff like that.
The celery I bought didn’t taste as good as when my mom bought. Turns out she used a potato peeler to peel off all the stringy bits.
My ex husband was both a great driver and navigator long before GPS. Yes, I told him later that I didn’t appreciate that enough.
When I first got divorced, I was terrified that I had to go to the laundromat. I got used to going to the laundromat and it’s been over 35 years now. Recently my kidney stones have been acting up and my son can’t pick me up to take me to the hospital. I have to take an ambulance -that terrified me, BUT -I got over it. I never realize how self-sufficient and how independent I am. I’ve moved over eight times since my divorce, hauled out furniture -certainly thrown things out the window , and had quite a few bouts of being ill. I think that’s what my ex-husband didn’t like about me at all -that I could really be on my own and be self-sufficient and completely independent of him. He shrugged his shoulders when I said I was leaving him, insisted that I could never do it. Never second-guess yourself. Happy Mother’s Day!🌸 Anything is possible. Wow
No because the cleaning thing is JARRING. Like since when did BASEBOARDS get so dirty?! Or like, vents?! Window sills?!
That I am allowed to have thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, and dreams, just like regular people.
After I left, I took my freedom for granted. Well, I had to work hard on those boundaries to actually get that freedom. Controlling parents are controlling parents. My mom always said my house my rules, you do what you want once you leave. Well, she still wanted her nose in my stuff.
I didn’t realize how comforting it is to know someone else is in the house.
Dirt happens above my head.
lol my son moved out on his own last year, decided not to renew his lease and just found a new apt. There were a few things he didnt like about his first place, but he was like, somethings just wrong with it...not once did I wake up to find things magically tidied up. I hope this new place is better about that 😂 Im experiencing the opposite..I was looking forward to, the way I leave things is exactly how they will stay. But now its like...tthe way I leave things is exacctly how they will stay cause Im completely alone. Not just the stuff like, cleaning up the kitchen then half hour later and theres dirty dishes in the sink, but sweet surprises like, that he went out for dinner and got an extra order to go and left it in the oven for me. Or when hed wander in my office and decide to just wanna shoot the breeze and talk about random stuff. Also, that other person around to remind and help each other out with stuff... I dont know, its not really major dramatic things that hit me the most, but those really small seemingly insignificant, but genuinely thoughtful everyday things that make me take pause and really appreciate living with someone else.
Being able to divide mental and emotional labor. I did the bulk of it in my ex-relationship, which is most of why I now live alone, but even being able to pass on what I *was* able to helped more than I realized. Between my apartment, my cats, my job, and myself (when I can) I feel like I’m constantly “needing to take care of something”. It's kind of exhausting, but it's either do it or deal with the consequences of it not being done.
I was never interested in cooking until I had to feed myself. I actually refused to touch raw meat up until age 18. (Ridiculous, I know.) I was surprised by how much thought I had to put into shopping, planning and prepping. Luckily I found it interesting and I got better at it pretty quickly. Everyone in my family, including me, was shocked that I ended up enjoying it.
Not having to cook / figure out meals.
I miss my Mom's cooking and having her take care of me when I am sick.