living alone in your 20s

what no one tells you before you move out for the first time

I’d always dreamed of living alone.

Ever since I was old enough to peruse the depths of the internet, I was hooked. Hook, line and sinker on the fantasy of sage green walls and sunlit spaces.

Of all the plants I’d nurture and the cats I’d own and the candlelit evenings spent reading after dinner.

Living alone vlogs were my comfort. I’d watch the likes of Michelle Choi and Mai Pham drifting through the version of adulthood I grew up romanticising - a picturesque apartment in a bustling city with a ridiculously comfy couch and the soft glow of lamps in every corner.

A sanctuary where I could escape the yells, the constant noise and armoury of my parent’s fighting, words clanging like swords on a battlefield.

I held onto this vision like sand that refuses to leave long after a beach day.

But there’s something that no one really tells you about living alone.

It’s quiet.

So? You may ask.

I like quiet. I long for quiet. Quiet doesn’t bother me.

And if you’d told me this a year ago, before I took a deep breath, brandishing my keys and stepping foot into my first apartment, I too would have shrugged my shoulders and not given it a second thought.

As an introvert, I relish my peace. Those moments where you don’t have to answer to anyone or anything but yourself.

But it can creep up on you. Drown you. Silence you. The freedom feels big, but sometimes so too does the emptiness.

Those moments where all you hear is the hum of the fridge, the incessant ticking of the clock, the beep of the microwave.

Sometimes my appliances are the only voices I hear all day.

And at first, it’s confronting.

That first night alone, tossing and turning because you’re no longer in your childhood room. Every noise feels foreign, every shadow unfamiliar, every creak a threat.

There are no other voices to keep you in check. No one nagging you to wash your laundry. No one telling you off for letting your dishes pile up. Reminding you to eat. To go to bed early. To wake up at a reasonable time.

Everything falls on you. From that row of dust on the windowsill to the long overdue grocery shop so you can feed yourself something other than cup ramen.

But isn’t that what you always wanted this whole time?

A place to call your own. A way to heal your relationship with yourself and your family. To deepen your connections with your friends.

To give you an unbreakable bond with yourself.

Solitude is neither lonely nor grand. It’s something softer, a quiet space in between - a room where you begin to meet the person you’re becoming.

Every chore is yours, but so is every moment of joy. All of it, entirely yours.

It doesn’t happen overnight. It can take months. A year. Maybe even more.

But then… one day you wake up and it’s 7am on a Saturday morning (well… closer to 10am since you still love sleeping in). Sunlight pools on the floor through your half open blinds. You’re whisking your matcha, the dryer is on in the background and your dishwasher has just beeped for the fifth time to let you know it’s done.

And you realise - you’ve healed your relationship with food and exercise, because no one is watching how much you eat or what you do. You’ve renewed your sense of discipline and your spark for hobbies and passion projects.

For the first time in your life, you have a sense of control and autonomy; a space to call your own.

And the silence is a welcome companion.