Homeward Bound

Who says you can't go home? Me, up until two weeks and two days ago. Despite my parents' and even a few friends' urgings to move back, live a block from work, avoid high gas prices and Philadelphia's gouging wage tax, I was firm on my need to live within city limits. If I couldn't walk to a bar and a grocery store from my apartment, I wasn't having it.

And then I saw some of the city's slim pickings. It turns out that a crumbling housing market means landlords can charge a lot more for rent, something I'm not currently able to bend to. Most apartments within my price range were either very far out from any sort of city life, or infested with things that moved.

Disheartened after one particularly sad apartment -- a trip I took with not at all helpful Mom ("Well, this is no Georgetown," and "You have to set high standards," set against "You kids are spoiled. You're too picky.") -- I sat down to discuss my difficulties logically with my dad. He suggested broadening my search to beyond city limits -- the Main Line in particular. I told him I would rather live at home for free than pay for an apartment from which I would have to drive everywhere. And he asked me, why didn't I?

I started considering it -- but of course I couldn't stand to live under my parents' watchful eye all the time. My dad's not-so-subtle hints to law school. ("She's going. Next year.") My mom's not-so-subtle hints to my weight. ("Why don't you just start with that? It's an awful lot of food on your plate...") But the option of the pool house emerged.

My family doesn't actually have a pool house. The nickname is a leftover from the favorite OC quote, "Don't say pool house!" When my parents moved in and commenced their major renovation of a decrepit house, they had to ditch the pool, which had become a health hazard and was providing a home to a family of ducks. The pool house, then, became the "back office," a place for my dad to meet clients after work hours. Once he opened a private practice only 5 minutes from home, that purpose dissolved, and it became just a storage facility for my parents.

Now, it is soon to be my apartment. I'm quite hesitant about living this close to home and living in the suburbs (not really my style, particularly all the driving), but I figure a) it will save me a lot of money, b) it's convenient to work, c) it serves as a good test drive of whether I actually could be happy living in the suburbs, and d) it allowed me to commit to buying the final "life changing" event -- details tomorrow.