What I have learned

It is just over a year since I signed the contract on this flat (the anniversary was Wednesday), and slightly less since I moved in. This has been the first time for a very long time I have lived alone; the only other time being my year abroad from university when I lived in a school in France. 

As I look back on the past year (and prepare to move on again), I have been reflecting on some of the things I have discovered and learned. Here are a few snippets from those thoughts:

• It will come as no surprise to anyone, least of all me that I am still very much a people person. I love spending time with other people; both in group settings and one-to-one with friends. I love the fact that I have so many different, wonderful people in my life; and community and belonging are definitely important to me. Much of my people time is in other places, and I love hosting guests here too. But having my own space does, it turns out, also really suit me: I do also enjoy my own company and in between my very peopled existence, I have been very much appreciating time spent alone.
• My life is rich in variety and no two days are the same, which is exactly the way I want it to be. Having said that, I have found that having some elements of routine or structure in life do matter ... and so is the flexibility to bend or break those routines when necessary. I appreciate the fixed points, both external and self-imposed around which my life is organised. As a rule, I have intentionally kept the weekends having a distinct and different feel to them to weekdays too which feels like it is probably important.
• Before moving to Birmingham all those years ago, I was very unsure about how much I would enjoy life at the heart of a busy city: it turned out that I did, very much. It became my normality, and moving out into a residential area has been a reminder of some of the ways it was quite a distinctive place to live and things I was missing there: little things, mostly: such as having easy access to a proper supermarket that isn't just set up for convenience foods, and just the very different feel to the streets I walk around.
• Another significant change from being in the city centre revolves around transport and I acknowledge having lost a level of convenience on that front: many of my activities still take place in the city centre or now involve significantly more travel. It has meant some earlier starts, more time at bus stops and sometimes finding myself with time to kill between activities when I previously would have nipped home but it isn't worth coming back here. But I have also learned that you can get used to most things fairly quickly and I have adapted to this now just being the reality: I rarely find myself comparing it to an alternative.
• I've let myself know that it is ok to resort to 'stick something in the oven' convenience foods some of the time, and I've found batch cooking is a must since living by myself. It's also nice to have visitors which can be a prompt to make more effort ... but sometimes it is also nice to put in lots of effort to cook a really nice meal, just for yourself. 
• I am aware I am extremely privileged with the amount of space I have to myself here. Having my bedroom as a space distinct from my living and working space is definitely a gift I have come to appreciate. Admittedly, I haven't entirely kept technology out as I do still take my phone (maybe that's a next step!) but I have never taken my laptop in, nor many other things, and I have recognised the benefits of generally keeping my sleeping space distinct from the rest of life.
• One of the things I think others, perhaps more than me although I too sensed the risk, thought when I moved here was that I might not be able to switch off from work and the things that keep me busy. But while it does remain true that I lead a very busy life, and yes, I do occasionally have moments of being utterly overwhelmed and feeling like I am not on top of everything I need or want to do; actually, I have, I think quite effectively been able to build down time into my life. And if some of that is meaningless time wasting by scrolling through social media and the like, it has also included reading plenty of books, spending time with friends, arts and crafts, taking advantage of having green space at the end of the road, and plenty of other ways to relax.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things I could say, but those are my disparate thoughts at this particular point in time.