from hermit to commune member
Dec. 16th, 2018 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arduinnaI've been writing (and rewriting) up a post about this for a solid week and more now, trying to get it Just Right. Perfection, man, the enemy of the good. So screw it, I'm just gonna wing this right in the posting interface in one shot.
kass asked what it was like living with friends, and shoshanna asked me to talk about the move where I started living with friends.
We start with today's first example: I was vaguely awake and poking at things on my phone in bed this morning (...ish) whentherienne showed up in my doorway and said "Get up, or I'm feeding your bacon to the cats!" So I got up and got dressed and went downstairs to where she and mollyamory were sprawled in front of the tv with plates of bacon, shirred eggs, and toast, with a plate of the same waiting on the coffee table for me.
I loved living by myself for 30 years, but it must be said, the fairly regular appearance of bacon and eggs on the weekend for me to eat just becausetherienne believes in weekend breakfast is a pretty damn good tradeoff.
(I fed bacon to the cats as I was eating. I'm not a monster.)
And honestly, that's mostly what it's like. Yesterday we had friends over for a potluck/hangout kind of a day, which we started doing well before the move; the difference for me is that I don't have to drive over to it, or drive home after. Today was that lovely breakfast, then hanging out in my office doing my own thing whilemollyamory gamed in the living room and therienne ran errands. Supper was a joint effort at tacos, eaten on the couch in front of a couple of episodes of this year's Great American Baking Show Holiday Whatever. Then there was the nightly cleaning-up bustle where between us we get things generally tidy for tomorrow before bed. After that mollyamory and therienne head upstairs to wind down so they can get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and I head off to my office to putter around for a while later, since I'm on a later schedule than they are.
I'm making the biggest adjustment on this end of things with never being able to leave and go home to my own place, but they already did the seriously hard work a decade ago when they moved in together and sorted out how to be roommates. I had that whole decade of having their house as my second home, getting used to the rhythms of things. We've been on vacations together, been on roadtrips together, roomed at cons together; we've sat in hospital ERs and waiting rooms for each other; we're used to each other's ways.
It's a little weird not being 100% responsible for everything - meals, cleaning, trash, you name it - but it's also nice not to have to be 100% responsible for EVERYTHING. And it's really nice living with other people who were socialized as female growing up; none of us actually ever wants to clean the bathroom or scrub stains off of things or empty the trash, but we all know those things need to be done regardless so we do them as we see them. We never run out of milk or toilet paper, even though there isn't a single one of us in charge of those things. We check in with each other before any of us goes to a store in case someone needs something, even though we're each responsible for our own groceries. We each provide dinner at least one night a week, more if we're in the mood, so no one has to do all their own cooking.
It's good!
As for how we got here:
I had pretty specific requirements for moving in with them; mostly, I needed space. I had a 4.5-room apartment to myself for 25 years. I didn't want such close quarters that I couldn't get some space and alone time if I needed it. We'd been sort of idly thinking about it for years -- the big retirement commune we'd get one day, where I'd have a wing or an outbuilding to myself but still be close enough not to have to drive over for bacon or tv. (While you're thinking idly, you may as well think BIG.) I'd been amused by the idea originally, then had come around over the years to thinking it would probably happen someday on a smaller scale as we all got older - it makes sense to combine households to save on expenses and make chores and such easier. But it was all way out there in the distance someday, because they were perfectly happy in their little house and I was perfectly happy in my little apartment and we lived less than 2 miles away from each other anyway.
Then this past February,therienne decided it was time to move to a bigger place, for Reasons. I was ready to help them look, when somehow the planning turned to "big enough for us and Arduinna". ... Okay? Sure? I didn't actually think we'd find someplace that big within budget, but agreed in general to the idea, figuring if it didn't work out I still have a very comfortable apartment I was happy in.
Three weeks later we'd found two places: the first was charming but needed some reno work to get it to tick all our boxes, and the second ticked all our boxes but had no charm. Being practical women, we decided to go for the practical house that met our needs. ... For a couple of hours, until actually thinking about living there causetherienne to break and admit she wanted the charming house, which mollyamory and I were both totally on board with, with bells on, because seriously SO CHARMING. The timing on everything worked out pretty much perfectly, and by June it was ours.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty amazing, with enough space for all of us to have our own areas as well as shared space that's really comfortable to hang out in. The previous owners were meticulous about upkeep and improvements, so we have some things we would never in a million years have done ourselves but that are awesome, like the complete de-leading they had done when their grandkids were born a few years ago.
The reno work we need done involves some plumbing, which I'm braced for being a nightmare. Parts of this house go back almost 240 years, and the basement was dug out sometime after the main house was built. It's tiny and cramped and doesn't extend under the entire house, so running pipes is, uh. Yeah, it will be fun.
It's going to be weird in a good way for me this winter. At my old place, I only had street parking, and winters were grim. I tried to leave my house as little as possible, and when I did leave, I did my damnedest to have someone come get me, because I hated losing my parking spot. Like, hated. Got insanely anxious about. Ugh. (The endless snowy winter of 2015 consisted of my car not budging from its spot for three months - even though I paid to have it dug out after every storm just in case - whiletherienne and mollyamory came to get me every Saturday afternoon and bring me shopping, then back to their place long enough to do a couple loads of laundry, then home again as the snow started back up for the next round.)
Now, though, there is a driveway. With space. Enough so we don't even need to shuffle cars around for someone to get out. We can just... go. My god, the luxury of not having to worry about being ticketed because I forgot to move my car. <3 On the downside, now I have to worry about people being able to get out to work in the morning, which I just... don't do in bad weather. But again, being practical women, we looked at the driveway and what winters around here are turning into, and bought the biggest snow-blower we could, so hopefully it won't be too awful.
Anyway! Living here is just nice; it's a good house with good friends and it feels right. Which I admit is a bit of a relief; I thought it would work out this way or I wouldn't have done it, but it would have really sucked if this had sucked. *g*
kass asked what it was like living with friends, and shoshanna asked me to talk about the move where I started living with friends.We start with today's first example: I was vaguely awake and poking at things on my phone in bed this morning (...ish) when
therienne showed up in my doorway and said "Get up, or I'm feeding your bacon to the cats!" So I got up and got dressed and went downstairs to where she and mollyamory were sprawled in front of the tv with plates of bacon, shirred eggs, and toast, with a plate of the same waiting on the coffee table for me. I loved living by myself for 30 years, but it must be said, the fairly regular appearance of bacon and eggs on the weekend for me to eat just because
therienne believes in weekend breakfast is a pretty damn good tradeoff. (I fed bacon to the cats as I was eating. I'm not a monster.)
And honestly, that's mostly what it's like. Yesterday we had friends over for a potluck/hangout kind of a day, which we started doing well before the move; the difference for me is that I don't have to drive over to it, or drive home after. Today was that lovely breakfast, then hanging out in my office doing my own thing while
mollyamory gamed in the living room and therienne ran errands. Supper was a joint effort at tacos, eaten on the couch in front of a couple of episodes of this year's Great American Baking Show Holiday Whatever. Then there was the nightly cleaning-up bustle where between us we get things generally tidy for tomorrow before bed. After that mollyamory and therienne head upstairs to wind down so they can get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and I head off to my office to putter around for a while later, since I'm on a later schedule than they are. I'm making the biggest adjustment on this end of things with never being able to leave and go home to my own place, but they already did the seriously hard work a decade ago when they moved in together and sorted out how to be roommates. I had that whole decade of having their house as my second home, getting used to the rhythms of things. We've been on vacations together, been on roadtrips together, roomed at cons together; we've sat in hospital ERs and waiting rooms for each other; we're used to each other's ways.
It's a little weird not being 100% responsible for everything - meals, cleaning, trash, you name it - but it's also nice not to have to be 100% responsible for EVERYTHING. And it's really nice living with other people who were socialized as female growing up; none of us actually ever wants to clean the bathroom or scrub stains off of things or empty the trash, but we all know those things need to be done regardless so we do them as we see them. We never run out of milk or toilet paper, even though there isn't a single one of us in charge of those things. We check in with each other before any of us goes to a store in case someone needs something, even though we're each responsible for our own groceries. We each provide dinner at least one night a week, more if we're in the mood, so no one has to do all their own cooking.
It's good!
As for how we got here:
I had pretty specific requirements for moving in with them; mostly, I needed space. I had a 4.5-room apartment to myself for 25 years. I didn't want such close quarters that I couldn't get some space and alone time if I needed it. We'd been sort of idly thinking about it for years -- the big retirement commune we'd get one day, where I'd have a wing or an outbuilding to myself but still be close enough not to have to drive over for bacon or tv. (While you're thinking idly, you may as well think BIG.) I'd been amused by the idea originally, then had come around over the years to thinking it would probably happen someday on a smaller scale as we all got older - it makes sense to combine households to save on expenses and make chores and such easier. But it was all way out there in the distance someday, because they were perfectly happy in their little house and I was perfectly happy in my little apartment and we lived less than 2 miles away from each other anyway.
Then this past February,
therienne decided it was time to move to a bigger place, for Reasons. I was ready to help them look, when somehow the planning turned to "big enough for us and Arduinna". ... Okay? Sure? I didn't actually think we'd find someplace that big within budget, but agreed in general to the idea, figuring if it didn't work out I still have a very comfortable apartment I was happy in. Three weeks later we'd found two places: the first was charming but needed some reno work to get it to tick all our boxes, and the second ticked all our boxes but had no charm. Being practical women, we decided to go for the practical house that met our needs. ... For a couple of hours, until actually thinking about living there cause
therienne to break and admit she wanted the charming house, which mollyamory and I were both totally on board with, with bells on, because seriously SO CHARMING. The timing on everything worked out pretty much perfectly, and by June it was ours.It's not perfect, but it's pretty amazing, with enough space for all of us to have our own areas as well as shared space that's really comfortable to hang out in. The previous owners were meticulous about upkeep and improvements, so we have some things we would never in a million years have done ourselves but that are awesome, like the complete de-leading they had done when their grandkids were born a few years ago.
The reno work we need done involves some plumbing, which I'm braced for being a nightmare. Parts of this house go back almost 240 years, and the basement was dug out sometime after the main house was built. It's tiny and cramped and doesn't extend under the entire house, so running pipes is, uh. Yeah, it will be fun.
It's going to be weird in a good way for me this winter. At my old place, I only had street parking, and winters were grim. I tried to leave my house as little as possible, and when I did leave, I did my damnedest to have someone come get me, because I hated losing my parking spot. Like, hated. Got insanely anxious about. Ugh. (The endless snowy winter of 2015 consisted of my car not budging from its spot for three months - even though I paid to have it dug out after every storm just in case - while
therienne and mollyamory came to get me every Saturday afternoon and bring me shopping, then back to their place long enough to do a couple loads of laundry, then home again as the snow started back up for the next round.) Now, though, there is a driveway. With space. Enough so we don't even need to shuffle cars around for someone to get out. We can just... go. My god, the luxury of not having to worry about being ticketed because I forgot to move my car. <3 On the downside, now I have to worry about people being able to get out to work in the morning, which I just... don't do in bad weather. But again, being practical women, we looked at the driveway and what winters around here are turning into, and bought the biggest snow-blower we could, so hopefully it won't be too awful.
Anyway! Living here is just nice; it's a good house with good friends and it feels right. Which I admit is a bit of a relief; I thought it would work out this way or I wouldn't have done it, but it would have really sucked if this had sucked. *g*
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 12:48 pm (UTC)They do dinner together when they want to, and seasonal dinners for everyone, but they come and go as they please like roommates who each have their own lives. It works really well for them and they seem pretty content.
I'm heartened to see more and more of this 'friends living together' thing happening. I hope it becomes standard.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 05:43 pm (UTC)I live alone right now, but for about 10 years before that I lived with good friends (first one, and then we added in another.) It was quite similar in a lot of ways, allowing for different personalities and no one working from home, and it was GREAT. Living alone is really nice too -- I never had, and I'm enjoying it -- but there are definitely things I miss about the friends collective household set up too.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 06:39 pm (UTC)Seriously, this has been a life goal of mine since
no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:51 pm (UTC)I hope you guys do it, too!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:53 pm (UTC)(weekend breakfast is amazing!)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:55 pm (UTC)Also we are now just a few miles from a fantastic ice cream stand. Just sayin'.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-21 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 01:07 am (UTC)