Moving out of my childhood home to live on my own was going to be tough. I realized this as I rolled out of the U-Haul truck with a piece of toast in one hand and my hopes and dreams in the other.

I moved out of my family’s place a little more than a year ago. In the time since, I’ve experienced a lot, I’ve learned and I’ve grown. Given that I’ve just moved out again somewhere new, why not reflect on the time that I spent living away from my family and share that with you.

I’ve yet to find my partner in crime, and I’m facing the possibility that I will be alone forever. Our world’s future is bleak enough that I don’t see the need to bring new life into a soon to be dead world. If you’re not interested in having kids then why have a long term romantic relationship in the first place? To abide by social norms? That ain’t me.

So here I am, living on my own. Being alone sucks but it’s also an opportunity for me to grow. Now, I’m fully responsible for everything in my life and so I need to rise up to challenges that present themselves or sink.

That’s what I’ve tried to do. In the past year, I’ve become a healthier version of myself, physically and mentally. For a couple months before moving out, I was neglecting my commitment to regular physical activity. After moving out, I took it upon myself to get into strength training and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’m not big and green, yet, but I’m stronger than ever before. I took up intermittent fasting as a way of losing some weight. I’ve learned to cook for myself efficiently and well. And, because of all this, I feel better about myself than I ever have before.

It might surprise you to know that the biggest change for me came from the time and space away from my family. I love my family but I don’t want to live with them again. I wasn’t happy there, and that unhappiness leaked out into every facet of my life. I wasn’t fun to be around, I wasn’t a good friend, I was negligent and the only thing I could do to fix myself was to leave.

So I did.

As time passed, I’ve gradually shed the pain of my past life and have dedicated myself to becoming a better person every day. Perfection is unattainable but as long as I’m moving toward it I’m happy.

I learned the hard way that nobody is going to want to be around me if I’m not happy with myself and my life. I’ve learned to be content with what I can’t change while working to change what I can.

I’ve learned to be satisfied with what I have, to appreciate my friends, to enjoy my job for what is, to love my family despite their imperfections… Is everything perfect? No. And that’s OK.

I’m only human after all, I can’t fix our broken world. But I can try my best to be happy and share that happiness with others to make our world suck just tiny bit less.

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