By Lucy Waddington

A year ago, almost to the day, I moved back home. Home-home, as in, my Mum’s house. It’s not somewhere I thought I’d be in my thirties. Due to rising rent, the cost-of-living crisis and generally navigating a post-pandemic world, many thirty-somethings have found themselves in the same position as me, living at home out of necessity. What was once a peculiarity is becoming more commonplace.

I had just finished my master’s when I moved back, which I’d relocated from London to Cornwall to do. Financially, it made sense to avoid getting into more debt and live gratefully rent-free for a couple of months before I returned, hopefully, to my career in the film industry. It was enough of a plan to stick to, and I thought that a month or two at my Mum’s could be a good reset for me after the stress of moving, graduating and embarking on another life change.

Fortunately, my Mum and I have a good relationship, and she was pleased to welcome me back. It felt surreal to be unloading my things into the garage to be stored, for who knew how long. To find space in her home for my boxed-up one. After the moving van left, I was exhausted and relaxed in the familiar space, only slightly mourning my independence.

I returned to a job I’d done previously, for a friend of my Mum’s in a little clothing boutique. It felt easy to slot back into it all: the work, the pace of living, the small luxuries of living with a parent. But I wasn’t ready to settle. Even after just a couple of weeks had passed, I found myself back in Cornwall for the weekend, not quite ready to let go of my life there, and a week later, in London, desperately waiting for my new life to start. Until I found work that would enable me to move and I had saved the money to do so, I was stuck. But being stuck turned out to be a useful place to be.

Self-comparison is where most of my discomfort from living at home has come from. Like any living situation, it hasn’t been perfect, but the most uncomfortable parts tend to be the judgment, or mainly self-judgment, that comes from saying out loud, ‘I live with my Mum’.

I have a few friends my age who are in similar positions to me, which helps when things are tough and I feel behind compared to my peers. When I’m struggling, I know that my friends will understand and that speaking to them can help to dispel the myths I’ve imbibed from film and television that living at home in your thirties is embarrassing and uncool. They also get that as much as you can love a parent, it can be frustrating to be told you’re somehow doing the washing up wrong, or to not come home too late, after years of living independently.

Dating is certainly complicated somewhat by living at home, more so than online dating already is, but it needn’t be impossible. Until fairly recently in our history, living at home until marriage wasn’t unusual; it was expected. Or at least, that’s what I’m telling Craig on Hinge, who, as it turns out, doesn’t believe in marriage anyway and has since unmatched me.

One thing I went searching for in Cornwall before I moved home was a return to simplicity. I had a desire to strip back the layers of my life to leave only what I truly needed and valued. I think I found that there, but I have since found it again at home too.

What that means to me now, after sharing evenings with my Mum most days of the week for over a year now, is how to balance my input and my output. I have learnt how to rest when I need to, how not to get burnt out, how to enjoy the quiet moments – the verging on boring ones. I have learnt that time alone will always bring me back to myself, but I can’t feel my wholeness of self completely alone. I like having company around, I like another person’s footsteps in the house, someone to say goodbye to as I leave the house, someone to help with chores, someone to buy a treat for.

The fact that the person I got to share these little moments with is my Mum means that there is no real pressure on these interactions. We already knew how to be around each other, what our boundaries were, what might trigger us, and what makes each other laugh. I can be honest with her in a way I would struggle to be with a housemate or a friend. We can bicker and argue, and it can be frustrating, but it doesn’t ever change the nature of our relationship. In fact, it has only ever strengthened it in the long run.

I have enjoyed carving out my space here. I have created a beautiful room for myself, made pockets of independence and freedom, and have the time to stretch into a new career. I have built a different kind of life, prioritising my mental health and wellbeing over the rat race and rent. It has been exactly what I needed – a place to rest and recuperate, to come back to myself. The new career is in special education, and I am so pleased I had the opportunity to try it out, to experiment, and to take a job that I wouldn’t have been able to afford to elsewhere.

I know I will never be able to repay my Mum for this experience, in anything but a teacher’s salary, but I hope she has enjoyed it too. We have laughed a lot, and often, together. We have cooked together, discovered together, learnt together. We have become greater friends; we have come to learn more about each other and, by extension, ourselves.

Whatever happens next, life will move on. I know it will be richer for having spent the time here. I will be moving out next year, and I know that as my Mum continues to age, I will forever be grateful for the additional time we got to spend together. I will treasure it, bickering and all.