A room of one's own

Moving out, embracing change & facing insecruties. Since we're all friends here ...

Jul 13, 2025

Last week I moved into my 1-bed flat. I’ve lived in London for five years now, across several boroughs and explored new parts of myself in each of them. But with every lease renewal, every scour of Rightmove, I longed to find a place just for me. Where the dirty dishes in the sink and running out of loo roll were my responsibility alone. A space where I could write, sleep, eat, cry and rot to my heart’s content without spectators. A space to be selfish in.

I told my inner circle about two years ago that I was ready for this new era of my life. It felt like a big leap to say it out loud, as rental prices soured and people fled the city for pastures new so they could afford to keep a roof over their head. I knew it was from a privileged place that I could set out such a goal, let alone achieve it. But it remained a key component on every list of goals I’d make.

London is a city that chews you up and spits you out for the first couple of years, so flatmates who are there at the end of the gruelling work day are a necessity to offload to about how jammed the Northern Line was that morning or how badly your job interview went that day. They’ll pat your head and ask if you want to go to the pub, and all will be well again. They are a key component to surviving. But as navigating the city becomes second nature, and your nervous system recalibrates to the constant noise and pace of crowded streets, it starts to feel like home. And for me, home in my mind has long looked like a space where I am its only keeper.

Not everyone feels this way. I was having dinner with friends last month, gushing over my excitement at having finally signed the contracts and put the wheels in motion for my move-in date, when several of them expressed how lonely they’d feel with nobody else to come home to.

“Now I live with friends again, I realised how much I’d missed just having someone to have dinner with after work,” one said. “Yeah, I love having some space from time to time, but after one night home alone, I’m ready for the house to be full again,” said the other.

This sense of community and silent support from the people we live with is universal, and for me, it started at University. Evenings spent scrunched on uncomfortable Ikea sofas watching Come Dine With Me, eating frozen pizzas under blankets together, were a form of trauma bonding as we navigated the days of feeling homesick, hungover or heartbroken. To my surprise, these feelings came back tenfold when I moved to another new city, but this time with responsibility and expectations to not just have fun, but to be successful at the same time.

I wouldn’t change it though. I’ve written about my love affair with London, how it was always a dream I set my sights on. It’s become my safe spot to land - I’ve made it my sanctuary, in its own special, rough-around-the-edges way. From the chaos of Tooting Broadway back in 2020, to the bassline hum of Hackney Wick and most recently the hustle of the green lanes in Harringay, I’ve crossed and hopped over borough lines through every stage of my twenties. Every new corner of London I inhabited felt like it offered up a new version of myself, with new obstacles and lessons to be learnt.

With every new chapter of life comes growing pains. The past year for me has been one that catapulted me into a reality I didn’t know I was ever meant for so soon. Love, luck, fortune, happiness, have all come at me in spades, by the truckload in some cases, but it was all unexpected. At first, I felt like an impostor - this wasn’t meant for me, surely? I wanted all of it, sure, but it feels like I blinked and suddenly the grayscale lifted and I was seeing in colour for the first time. I feel like myself, in this brand new way, yet so far removed from the girl I was before.

When I was 25 and clutching at straws to find my purpose, I threw myself at people and things that I knew were not good for me. I would stagger home battered and bruised emotionally from the turmoil of spending time with boys who didn’t treat me right. I’d sit on the end of my bed and sob after spending the day at a job I hated, questioning why I’d ever left my safe little island home. I’d starve and gorge and drink and smoke until the feeling went away, wondering, "Is this the adulthood they promised would be so worth it?”

I trundled through big life events, like my first devastating situationship breakdown, the loss of my most loved person, being fired for the first time and questioning everything along with my intuition. Was I really meant to reach those big dreams I’d had before? Was I capable of turning things around, or would I always be at war with the version of myself that lived in the doubts swirling around my head?

I started writing about it all, right here. Pouring out parts of me that were once reserved for the pages of my journal, and finding solace in the fact that people understood what I was saying. Love is fucking tough, loss is even harder, but growing up amongst it all and battling through the murky waters of your early twenties to reach the surface felt like the impossible. That wildling in me who was hungry for change and experience seems now more settled, content even. As if without noticing, I’ve broken through to the surface and am now gliding on a lily pad, basking in the sun that is my late twenties. I make it sound romantic, but it is also the most unsettling and confronting phase I have faced so far. Because what comes next?

As the flat pack furniture is screwed together and the cupboards in my kitchen start to fill with pink pasta bowls and prosecco flutes, I stretch out on my yoga mat that now has a permanent home in my living room. I look across to the bedroom, soon to house my desk, my bed, and a spot to put my face on in the morning before work. My boyfriend’s toothbrush sits in my bathroom cabinet, and soon a chest of drawers will house his bits and bobs for when he stays over. I have four whole rooms to call my own and fill, naked walls waiting for art to adorn them and floors hungry for rugs to cushion my feet. Soon I’ll fill this space with my family and friends, with delicious food and wine that’ll leave stains on my tablecloth as the candles burn down. Memories are to be made here, much like the ones that were born from living with my closest friends as we grew together and figured it out side by side.

I realise that this feeling of uncertainty and excitement is a sign of growing up. I am still a bud yet to bloom, but I am becoming day by day the woman I set out to be: independent, loving, successful and now feeling whole.