I wish I could have spread my wings a little wider.(Did I have wings? Not even sure...I come back to that a lot.) But San Francisco is light-years cooler than the Phoenix suburbs, too. M. has a lot of things the rest of us want to run away to get. Am finally convinced the thyroid pills are really working. Which is a physical relief, but if I look at it another way, I went from square, say, -9, to square one again. Fucking yay. Even if I moved eight spaces.

When I went to the Pasadena F2F, my rental car was a Nissan Altima. It had fob with a fold-away key. That fit in my pocket much more comfortably than my Ford key does.

my mother...kind of picked a lot of fights with me to get me to leave. Feels like I could put quotes around that, in a sense, because at first I stayed with dad and stepmonster Would not rec either of these situations, exactly.

I was also a “get as far away from the fam as possible” college kid but I am also envious of others I know who liked their parents enough to settle down nearby (like my cousins who both live within a mile of their parents). Totally fair to have a privacy convo though.

cereal: One reason why the sitch with Dad sucked was that we were not on the same page. On some level, even though I wanted an independence life had not prepared me for, at all--I think I also thought that Dad and I could fix some unfinished business. They were kind of hoping for more the garden apartment experience(SM especially thought my having a separate entrance made her VERY cool, in a way that seemed kind of mean to me at the time...I hardly had friends, money or rides--breaking curfew wasn't a thing, right?I think they were also trying to shoehorn a decade's worth of self-reliance into ten months...it was a lot. I had a point, okay, well, basically, I'd say be clear about what you expect.say it out loud, sometimes.

I liked being where I was (DC), but it happened to be far enough away/close enough WRT to home (2 hours by train) that I really only spent holiday breaks at home, and I always spent the summers working for the Summer School and staying on campus. And yet I still managed not to grow up in ways I should have, but what can you do?

I can't fucking imagine wanting to go to college two blocks from my house and six blocks from my high school! Jesus, I couldn't wait to get away, reinvent myself and put thousands of miles between myself and my childhood.

This was me, and I've been at least a couple hours away since I was a teenager. (moved to Philly in my teens) My parents were awesome, but I needed to live elsewhere. In later years (my 40s) I bought the camp in Otter Lake next door to Mom, because with the decades came a new appreciation for being close. But that was only for summers.

I do think that part of this difference is generational. My sons would have lived home forever. Bobby lived with me until 25, even after he was married. The only way I got B Jr out of the house was to subsidize his rent and/or give him a job.

eta: I know countless parents now who have adult children that just don't want to leave. This was not the case in the 70s, at all.

more of a generation gap, for sure.

Yah, I for sure wanted to be out of the house, but I always enjoyed going back for holidays and such. It wasn't the family -- it was just time to go.

The work Subaru was fob-only, so the transition to my new used Subaru with a fob-only has been only mildly disorienting. At least I am no longer trying to pull the Sonic's handle (as I did with the work car) or search for the open button on the work Subaru's fob.

Really only mildly missing standard transmission -- but that's also because this is a much better, more powerful car -- and so quiet, especially when it switches into the near-silent EV mode. I've had it about three months and I've only filled up three times, but then I've mostly been keeping close to home and work!