FINDING HOME

I remember when I went for a job interview earlier last year and I was asked to fill out a form.
I stared blankly at the words 'home address', it would usually be so simple to fill out, but I didn't have one. I didn't even know where I would be living tomorrow.

I had just got myself a part time job in London and I hadn't managed to find somewhere to live, this is when I became a 'house hopper'.

As a spontaneous person, I loved constantly moving around, it was exciting and you are always meeting new people. I loved the thrill of not knowing where I was going to live next and you get to experience so many different areas of London.

But there came a point, where it went from exciting to draining.

I was living in houses, but I didn't have a home.

I didn't feel like I could always just blast out Justin Bieber (of course I did it anyway) and invite my friends over, I always felt like I was intruding.

I lived in one house where if I didn't take my possessions to work with me, they wouldn't be there when I got back. The people I lived with told me if the police knocked on the door, not to answer it. On many occasions I would come home with the front and back door left wide open with no one in and if I was even more lucky they would of also left the key in the door. It got to a point where I felt safer outside than inside the house.

This is when my life evolved around flicking through the 'Spare Room' website in hope to find somewhere to call home. I came across 'Speedflatmating' like speed dating, but to find a flat mate...

Incase you were wondering - it is as awkward as it sounds, you are practically interviewing people to see if they are up to your standards in order to be your flatmate. Luckily it's at a bar which helps ease the awkwardness slightly.

I ended up going to quite a few Speed Flatmating events, if anything I got to meet new people whilst sipping on a cosmopolitan and being overly-enthusiastic about the 'spare room' in their house.
They usually end up inviting you back for a house viewing and this is when you become a professional at holding back laughter. Once, I went to a viewing to see a 'luxurious room' - when I got there it was just a box room with no windows. You end up making eye contact with the other 'viewers', who are also trying to hold back laughter and exchange 'how do we get out of this' facial expressions.

It was getting to the end of one of the 'Speed Flatmating' events, I was getting hopeless. The only people I had talked to were cringey old men wanting a 'room mate'. I thought back to this morning when I came downstairs to make breakfast and there was random men in the house doing various 'dealings' on the kitchen counter - and just like that, I had the courage to talk to some people by the bar.

Our conversation pretty much went like this, "do you watch sex and the city?" "yes" - their names are Will and Rose and we now live together in a beautiful South London apartment!

I haven't gone into a huge amount of detail of what it really felt like, there were times that it was really lonely and living out of two suitcases becomes extremely tiring.

A home should be somewhere you can come back to and talk about your day with great people over tea and biscuits, not somewhere you dread to go back to. But if I didn't get out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't of found my dream apartment.

I will most likely be moving again in a few months, but until then I can unpack my suitcases and I have an address I can use to buy clothes on the internet.

MDB x