5 Reasons Every Woman Should Live Alone in Her 20s

You have reached a moment in your life where you don’t have to worry if there will be any Tupperware available to stash your leftover pasta. Or if all your tampons will have “magically disappeared” ONCE AGAIN when you need them most. It’s finally your space with no labelling of personal items or shelf designation involved. This also includes every food item in your kitchen. Yes, that entire bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is yours for that late post bar-hopping Saturday night mess that you just got home from. Yes, you can finish that bottle of pinot on the shelf along with that block of brie cheese and nobody will be pissed. IT’S ALL YOURS. So stock your kitchen accordingly . . .

There is no better feeling than not feeling obligated to be decent for others. Your apartment is your oyster and you can do everything in it uncensored. You can do the dishes without pants on. Wash the floor without pants on. Do everything without pants on. The freedom you gain from living alone early on helps you become comfortable in your own skin and comfortable being alone without the feeling lonely part. Not having to cater to anyone’s needs but your own brings about all the liberating feels!

Your 20s: a time of discovering many new things about yourself, including your current financial distress because you’re young and haven’t had the opportunity to save much. Unless of course your parents started a trust fund for you. But that’s not most of us. Although you most likely aren’t the richest person on your block, or even your building, living alone can really teach you how to budget for essentials and the extras. Believe me, you learn quickly. If you can afford to live by yourself for even a year, it is a great time to experience what it actually takes to live alone. You’re not a dependent child anymore. You have an internet bill and PG&E to pay every month so the desire to go wine tasting every weekend and meeting your friends for dinner four nights a week quickly dissipates.

You can’t blame that mess in the kitchen on that phantom roommate you had last year. You pretty much have to come to grips with the fact that you are, in fact, an unorganized animal and if you don’t change your ways in the next five minutes, you may find yourself on your bed in a ball of claustrophobic anxiety. Don’t let yourself reach that breaking point. You realize that being lazy really isn’t an option. You also realize that inhaling chili cheese fries at midnight makes you feel like crap the next morning. Sometimes it takes making the same mistake twice to realize that a change needs to be made. You have only yourself to hold accountable for those decisions and mistakes.

Living alone when you’re still young is all about self-discovery. First you lived with your parents all the way up until college, then you moved in with your roommates. Then, come your 30s when maybe you want to have a family of a sort. If you think about it, your 20s are the block of years you KNOW you have to yourself. You can be selfish with your time, make decisions based on your own judgement and reasoning, pick and choose who you want and don’t want to surround yourself with, and decide that yeah, you are going to hang that painting there. It’s an opportunity to learn what you like. It’s also an opportunity learn what you don’t like and come up with feasible solutions to your problems at hand. Being thrown into the ring of fire like this is an amazing thing. You are mentally and physically resilient, making no time better than now to gain true independence and self-love.