New year, new home

Well, not quite, as my purchase isn't quite finished yet, but hopefully, fingers crossed and if all goes well, I will in the next month or two be moving into my very own flat. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to it.

I have mostly been ok with living in shared houses, but in recent months I have found that more and more aspects of it are annoying me. I don't like that I have to use the bathroom according to a timetable on weekday mornings, I don't like going into the kitchen and finding I have to wash up the baking tray/saucepan/whatever before I can use it, I don't like that I can't always watch my choice of TV in the lounge, I don't feel comfortable when one of my housemates complains to me about the others.

I'm not sure why I started to feel this way (I do wonder if it is to do with getting older, as I am 40 later this year), but I know that I have reached the point where I cannot live with housemates any longer, I really need my own space. I cannot wait to have an entire flat which is all mine, a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and lounge which are to be shared with nobody.

So, a need for space of my own was one reason by buying a flat, the other was thinking about my housing situation after I retire from work. I live in a shared house as its cheaper than renting a whole flat by myself, but at retirement aged 67, I am not sure that houseshares, generally made up of people in their 20s and 30s, would want me to join them. That would leave renting a flat for myself, but that would take a big chunk of my pension and I could foresee myself not having any spare cash to actually enjoy my retirement with. So the decision was made to look for a flat to buy, a home which I will own outright by the time I retire.

It isn't how I thought I would end up buying a home. In my younger days I thought I would one day have a husband and that we would buy a house together, or that he would already have a house that I could move into. I never envisaged having to save up the deposit by myself and having to get a mortgage based on only my income, but that's how it has worked out, and I am excited for this next part of my life to begin.

I haven't thought too much about my virginity or lack of boyfriend lately. A few months ago e-harmony started emailing me the names of matches and inviting me to rejoin, but I have been pretty busy and I just haven't felt motivated enough to login, join and check my matches. Perhaps I have become so used to the idea of being single forever that I don't feel any kind of push to change things anymore? I do sometimes feel sadness at being single, and in the oddest of situations. Just before Christmas I was in an informal meeting at work with a few of my team, and suddenly was overwhelmed by thinking "I really need someone to sit next to me and put their arm around me", and I felt so sad that I don't have anyone who would do that.

In other news, I feel so much less stressed since I ended my friendship with T. I have occasionally missed her (the fun side of her) since last March. I went to a concert alone which we were due to go to together and I did briefly think of her, and of what we might have chatted about and the excitement we would have shared had she been there. But at other times, I have felt only relief that she is no longer in my life. I can open my email without dreading that she has sent a hugely long message which requires me to reply as if I were a counsellor. I don't spend time wondering when she is next going to get angry with me and stop talking to me. I can mention to any friend of mine that I have plans with another friend without worrying that they will react with extreme jealousy. And the rest of the time, she is just someone I have fond memories of who is no longer part of my life.