Living at Home

I've turned into a lazy, good for nothing fat ass upon my return from the Czech Republic and my assimilation into "normalcy" whilst being forced to live at home due to insufficient funds and parental coddling.

I don't know how any of you feel about Feng Shui, but I am a firm believer in the spirit of a place and how its arrangement affects your mental "chi." When I came home that frosty December night, over-exhausted from jet lag and familial emotional overload, I felt an instant defeat as I crashed in the room I had spent the entirety of my high school career in. Nothing had changed, save for the textiles from other countries I deliberately draped my belongings in (to spruce up the place, to no avail unfortunately...) My bed was in the same place it had always been, my bookshelves still crowded with useless crap...even some of my makeup from high school stared me in the face from my nooked-dresser. Who was I? I felt like I had traveled back in time and was a dependent, spoiled little high school senior once more.

I can't work where I sleep, unless there is absolutely no where else I can work. The clutter that has lasted in my life since I was young prevents me from getting any effective work processed; I don't even have a good place to keep a printer.

My mood has changed drastically. I used to be a very content, mellow person. I used to go with the flow, didn't care what happened so long as I was happy, and I was usually satisfied with whatever happened. I didn't have to deal with conflict too much, because who cared? Now however, I see conflict with everything - what I'm eating for dinner, having to wait outside at the train station, doing the laundry or hanging out with friends. I never used to be a surly, cynical, bitter and overall ugly person - I have changed as such, because of living at home.

I'm also less assertive, and I have developed a sense of entitlement. How, you ask? Because my parents give me anything I need. They give me money when I'm broke. They gave me a car and pay for insurance when I need to go places. They let me come home from the bars shitfaced. The only thing they have a rule for is boys - I can't bring those home. Or rather, I'm not SUPPOSED to bring them home, but I know how to sneak them in and out if I need to. Basically, they have taught me that when you are 22 years of age, why should you have to struggle? Why should you have to build any self-integrity? Go for your dreams, darling, reach for the stars, and we'll be here to bring them down for you if they are too high.

I mean, I suppose it's a good thing that my parents were never the kind to say, "When you turn 18, we're kicking you out of the house, and you're on your own." Otherwise I'd probably be in worse shape than I am. But this whole, "Go to grad school, even though you can't afford it" is a little ridick. Most parents would have said, "Well maybe you should go part time, and get a job to save up money so you can finally be an adult and move out."

Not these parents though. They secretly want to keep me here for as long as they can. I don't know why, but they do.

So, in turn, I have gained weight and am basically useless. Where once I was thin, pretty and independent, I am fat, with a lesbian haircut and the loser who lives at home while everyone else her age is getting on with their lives.

THAT's my point.