I used to think living with my parents was the ultimate failure in life. My main aim in my early twenties was to move back to Manchester where I’d studied at university and live independently. I remember feeling so old living at home when I was 24. One day, I decided to quit my job and move back to the city.
I’d been struggling with depression and a crazy, stressful job for the previous two years and believed that moving out would solve everything. I thought that by moving to Manchester, I would find my dream job in Financial Services and work my way up some corporate ladder. I dreamed of an incredible life living in some city centre apartment with my best friend. And on top of this, I thought I’d find an amazing boyfriend and we’d build an incredible life together.
It took me around six months to realise that my hopes and expectations of the city life I’d envisioned had been completely delusional. Just as I got to 25. Which resulted in me having a full-on breakdown on my birthday.
I hated my job and felt completely burned out and stressed. The relationship between me and my flatmate with whom I’d moved to Manchester completely broke down. The guy I’d been seeing from work got back with his ex behind my back. And I had put on around two stone from going out drinking most nights after work.
This was not how I’d envisioned my city life at all. I was expecting to feel like Lauren Conrad from The Hills (although thinking about it now, Lauren was always stressed with work and broke up with her best friend and boyfriend by season two so I probably should have known better).
Instead of having a fun and happy city life, I felt miserable and lonely.
Even though me and my flatmate didn’t completely fall out, we had drifted apart, and I was trying to do everything I could to stop that. Which only made everything more painful.
By the end of the year, we agreed that we couldn’t continue living together and she moved in with a girl from work whilst I found a place on Spare Room.
I continued to live in Manchester and work in Financial Services for another four years. I thought that working for another company would change things, but it only brought more work and stress. I got into a toxic relationship and became so severely depressed that I ended up on medication and going to therapy.
Whilst I recovered from the worst of my depression, I knew that I wasn’t happy in life. At the age of 29, I finally decided that enough was enough. I quit my job and left my life in Manchester to move back to my parents. I felt so ashamed and devastated that my five years in Manchester and career in Financial Services had all been for nothing. I couldn’t believe that I was giving up.
I had no idea what I was going to do. I‘d planned to do a Masters’ in Psychology but knew that I was rushing into making a decision to feel like I had a plan. This is what I’d always done, and I never gave myself time to figure anything out. In the end, I decided that I would move home with zero plans and trust that something would work out.
A couple of days before I was due to finish work, my company asked if I’d consider working for them on a remote basis for two days a week until I figured out what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t have to deal with clients, just write technical reports (which I actually enjoyed) to help the team out.
I couldn’t believe my luck. And whilst I only worked two days a week, my pay wasn’t cut as much as I had expected as I wasn’t paying as much tax. And for the first time, I actually had a great work-life balance (as you could probably expect from a two-day workweek).
After a few months of being back home, I realised I couldn’t have been more wrong in feeling like a failure. I stopped caring about what anyone else would think and felt at peace for the first time in years.
In an unexpected turn of events, my older sister moved back home around five months after I did due to a breakup. I’d still not decided what I wanted to do and so we decided to spend six months travelling around Italy and South East Asia. I couldn’t have ever done this if I’d still been trying to focus on a career in Financial Services or paying rent. I realised living back with my parents provided this type of freedom and that I should make the most of it.
Whilst travelling, I decided that I didn’t want to be chained to a desk and an office anymore. I wanted more freedom in my life. I decided to become self-employed and work on a part-time basis doing Financial Services admin. It’s not the most exciting job but it’s also not stressful and I can be flexible with my hours. It also meant that my career in Financial Services could actually be useful.
The plan is for me to work on some other projects alongside my part-time work and then potentially look to do a Masters’ degree in a year or so. Or I could do some more travelling. Who knows?
When I think about how I was in my twenties, I can’t believe that this is my life at 31. It is so far from what I had imagined or hoped. I thought I’d be settled down living in a house in Manchester, working a secure and well-paid job. But the life that I had imagined didn’t work out the way I planned.
I resented this for a long time but now I look back and accept that it just wasn’t for me. I feel so fortunate to have been able to move back with my parents and essentially start again.
I didn’t know myself at 24, made some very questionable decisions, and was immature in a lot of ways. I didn’t really learn who I was until my late twenties, and that was when I knew I had to reassess my life choices.
Moving back home at 29 was the best decision I ever made. My life isn’t perfect, and I would like to be more independent at some point. However, I enjoy it a lot more than I did trying to work towards the life I thought I dreamed of.
Sometimes things don’t work out, and that’s okay.
There’s no point regretting it, you just have to learn from your experience. And I can definitely say that I learned a LOT from my time in Manchester. I came back home an entirely new (and improved) person.
I’m now 31, single, and not sure what I want from life or my career at this stage. But I’ve learned to embrace the unknown and take it one day at a time. Life doesn’t have to be rushed. You don’t have to settle down or get married by 30 if you don’t want to.
Right now, I’m making the most of the time with my parents and sister now that we’re all older. My dad found out he had cancer when I moved home and being back meant I could help him and my mum. (P.S. I didn’t go travelling until my dad had been through his treatment and had recovered).
I wake up now and spend time in the garden with our two Labradors, go for walks with my mum and bike rides with my sister.
Do I feel like an overgrown child at times? Absolutely. Do I care? Not at all!
Despite what I used to think, there are really much worse things in life than moving back in with your parents in your late twenties. I know I’d rather be here than still feeling trapped living in Manchester in a job I hated or in an unhappy relationship. There’s nothing shameful about taking some time out to reassess what you want from life.
The way I see it, I’m now a lot closer to living the life I want. Whilst I don’t know how my life will look in five years’ time, I’m no longer using all of my time and energy working towards a career I definitely don’t want. Now I get to use my time working out what I want to do, whilst spending time with my family and the dogs.
There are times that I miss living by myself but after living away for much of my twenties, being at home means the world to me now. And I’m sure I’ll look back at this chapter of my life when I’m older and be so grateful for this time with my family.