After partying away most of my senior year of HS, I announced two months after graduating that I was moving in with my new boyfriend, 50 miles from my parents.
My mom was absolutely horrified, with her belief that there should be no nookie before marriage. Dad tried to talk me out of moving in with the BF, even if I moved into my own apartment.
Three months later, the BF and I moved some 1400 miles away to Colorado. Like many young couples starting out, once we were away from our support systems, pretty much everything went to hell, no handbasket needed.
Before my twentieth birthday, I was on a greyhound bus back to Indiana. I bounced back to my parents house for a couple of months before getting my own crappy efficiency apartment. I’ve been gone ever since.
I lived at home during college, but the summer after I graduated I drove with some girlfriends to see another girlfriend of ours who lived in a city about 300 miles away. I phoned my mother to say I had decided to stay. She wasn’t surprised. I never lived at home again.
When I left I had $400 to my name. For the first few months that I lived with this other girl, I didn’t spend one extra dime! Our rent (which we split) was $105 per month. Our grocery budget was 10 per week (which was ample). Gas was .20 per gallon- we had her father’s car, a big ol’ Chevy that cost about $4.00 to fill up… BUT WE NEVER FILLED IT UP, because we couldn’t afford it! We’d get a dollar’s worth of gas and drive all week on it! (Who else remembers getting a “dollar’s worth of gas”?)
I got a job at Christmas time at a teeny local, family-owned department store. Later I started graduate school. I needed $600 to enroll, and applied for a loan- I didn’t bother to ask my parents to co-sign the loan, as I fully expected them to turn me down. I had asked my parents if I oculd borrow $50 for a utility deposit, and they said, “You’re on your own now.” So for the graduate school loan I asked a teacher from my* alma mater*, and he graciously agreed to co-sign, God bless him.
I had met a guy (whom I later married and still later divorced) and he and I drove back to my parents’ house and got my stuff. It all fit in half the bed of the pickup truck. Later he and I moved in together. I was a graduate teaching assistant making about $300 per month. He worked in an auto body shop and made ~$200 per month. And we threw a 60-mile motor newspaper route every afternoon- I think that made about $250 per month if we could get the customers to pay. We had to collect personally- people didn’t pay through the mail much back then- this was ~1970.
Same here. I was 24 when daHubby and I tied the knot, and I moved from Wheeling to Charleston. My parents were kind of sad at me leaving but in the end we were all pretty happy about it. They had time with each other that they’d probably hadn’t had since I was a baby and I got to start over in a place where no one knew me.
18 I was behind in high school due to recovery from a head on collision. Came out to my parents who then told me I was no longer welcome there. Ended up on my brothers couch for 6 months or so before I could walk normally and work full time. After that got an apartment and carried on.
Sadly my mother left me instead. I lived with her until a few months before she died. She chose to move in with her friend, a nurse who was better able to handle her illness. Plus I think she didn’t want me to see her die.
Soon after she passed my brother and I sold her house. A few years later it burned to the ground.
We packed up the stuff that I needed for the dorm (which wasn’t much) and put it in my Dad’s car. I kissed Mom goodbye and my Dad drove me off eight hours away to college. He bought me a Happy Meal ;). I unloaded my stuff, he took me out for a nice dinner, we hugged, he drove back.
I did move back for about six months when I switched schools, but then found an apartment and moved out, same deal, but this time I had to load up furniture - my bed and a dresser and had friends move me instead of my Dad.
Plenty of drama followed, my parents divorced shortly after. My father is a different person now and I have a working relationship with him. I talk to my mother 3 times a year over the phone, each call lasts less then 5 minutes, neither of us really having interest in each others lives.
I spent my junior year of high school abroad, and after that my parents mostly figured I was an adult. I did my senior year at home. When I went to college, I packed up my stuff, they drove me to the dorms, wrote me a check, and said goodbye. I did live at home for a summer or so after that, but I was pretty much gone. My family doesn’t really do drama; it was all very casual.
Glad you had a brother to go to.