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The joys and sorrows of life away from home: what you need to know when you go to live away from home

On social media I often come across a tearful text, always the same, shared each time by different people, unconsciously linked to each other by a common denominator, that is the condition of being away from home. It starts like this: “Living away from home is not for everyone. You must have a big heart, big enough to pack everything you leave behind: joys and sorrows, friends and loves “. In the few lines that follow, the tone and the scenery become even darker: being an off-seat means stepping on a ground that does not belong to you, lying on a mattress that does not have your shape, spending the night staring at the ceiling wondering who you are and where you are going, and company.

Totally opposite to this rhetoric that wants the out of office to be unhappy and derelict, there is that of the out of office who leads the “Life That Everyone Dreams”, now that it has left the nest and took off, finally free. According to this narrative, if you are an off-site, there are no timetables, rules, breaks of any kind. There are only right people, right events, right parties, strictly to be immortalized and published in the stories of Instagram to show everyone that you are right. No, you always have been, only that the province clipped your wings.

Here, after a long time away from home, I can say with full knowledge of the facts that life away from home is neither at one extreme nor at the other., but it’s made up of ups and downs, just like everything else. There are moments when it sucks, but there are others, many others, in which it is even cool. If I could go back in time and talk to myself about a few years ago, this would be the first thing I would tell her. The first, but not the only one.

Forget American movies. Hey, me from the past, I’ll start right away with a gigantic spoiler: your life from away from home will be different from what you see in the cinema. Guess what’? It will involve a fair amount of responsibility, anxiety and chores.

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You’ll have fun. Yes, of course, there will be parties too, and they will be memorable. Once you will invite some friends over for a quiet aperitif, and the evening will risk ending with a complaint. You do not believe me? Wait a couple more years and you’ll see.

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Healthy and balanced diet? I don’t know her. Zero bangs, little money and cooking skills that define poor is a compliment will be the perfect ingredients for your diet based on pasta with tuna and frozen foods at the discount store. Don’t worry, nothing you can’t survive.

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You will feel homesick. There will be times when you would give anything to be with your family and friends of all time, times when you will realize with melancholy that you are missing out on birthdays, graduations and other important occasions, times when you would be capable of killing with his bare hands for a plate of grandma’s baked pasta. Still, isn’t having something or someone to feel homesick for the greatest of luck? It will take a while, but you will understand that too.

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Remember to go shopping. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. I know you’re used to finding the fridge full every time you open it now, but when you live alone * there won’t be anyone going to the supermarket for you. You will really realize this on the third night in a row where you will be forced to order pizza so as not to starve.

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Finding a house for rent, or the thirteenth effort of Hercules. With all the crumbling apartments at crazy prices I’ve visited over the years, I could now write a book about them. Chapter one: furniture dating back to the first postwar period. Chapter two: blind bathrooms. But you still haven’t understood how the world turns (real estate, at least) and you dream of minimal furniture, design prints on the walls and plants everywhere. I give you a dispassionate advice: better if you forget it quickly, this Pinterest-friendly Scandinavian style.

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Those who love you will continue to love you even 1000 km away. Come on, let’s close this here, I don’t like being sentimental.

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Have faith. A big heart will actually be comfortable for you, not to hold everything you are leaving behind, but to make room for everything you will find.

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