I got my own apartment before I graduated high school

We all feel so eager and dream of the day when we can have friends over on the weeknights and don’t have to hide a case of beer in the closet covered in towels. When you’re in high school, being an adult sounds like the best thing ever, but adulting sucks.

I enrolled in online school my senior year because most of my best friends had already graduated, and I wanted to work as much as I could to help out my mom. I loved my high school and didn’t want to leave for any particular reason but being the youngest always made me eager to do adult things before it was actually my time. I remember wearing eye liner to elementary school and only watching TRL and The Real World while everyone else was still into Ed, Edd, and Eddy.

Graduating like a boss

It isn’t even like I was on a short leash with my mom or anything – we were definitely more like roommates, but for some reason I felt the need to get my own apartment and begin my adulting. Seeing how all of my siblings had their own places to live and jobs made me feel like I wasn’t contributing.

I hadn’t even turned 18 yet and they were 11-15 years older than me flirting with their thirties, but my eager mind told me that it wasn’t an excuse. They had their time to be working multiple jobs and living on the struggle bus during their early twenties and I knew that was part of the deal. I have always had a fear of wasting time and not living every moment to the fullest, so I went on Craigslist and found an apartment.

THE apartment

A couple weeks after my 18th birthday I signed my one year lease and had the neighbor boys help me move everything into my new apartment in exchange for beer and pizza – typical bribe. I lived in a somewhat safe neighborhood on top of a hill and had a small front porch overlooking a dark alley to the police station.

The walls were painted dark red and the floor consisted of multi colored wooden floors that only a picture can do justice. My whole apartment had so much black leather, black sheets, lights, french doors to the bedroom, and abstract art that it looked like a 50 Shades of Grey red room, but in a non sadistic homey way.

My first night to myself.

I was working at the golf club that I still work at today, and if I was serving at any other place, I probably would have starved to death or been kicked out within the first couple months (not really, I have the best siblings in the world and I don’t think they would actually let me starve to death. They would probably try to prank me into thinking I was though). I tried to fully support myself, and let me tell you – times were rough.

If I didn’t work then I didn’t have leftovers from staff meal in my fridge, so I would dig up the stray dollars that didn’t go towards my $515 rent, $80 electricity bill (thank God water and gas were included in the rent), $170 car insurance, or $70 cell phone bill and go buy frozen bags of vegetables. I still don’t get why being a human and existing is so expensive.

I had random notes left on my door from a man saying he was watching me, drunk people from the bar up the street banging on my door in the middle of the night, and I threw the best girls nights ever.

This was hanging on my door when I woke up one morning.

The struggle was real though – really real. However, I would be totally lying if I said that I regretted the experience. It made me decide I wanted to go to college and make a better life for myself so that I didn’t have to work so hard and have such little money to experience life how my friends were.

I learned how to throw amazing parties and clean efficiently from said parties. I became the hostess with the mostest and felt so independent and could somewhat understand what my siblings were doing in their twenties which was enough for me.

The basic life lessons of paying bills on time, getting health insurance through your work, finding out what to do when the Fire Department tows your car because it is leaking gas, learning how to fix a running toilet so that you don’t have to pay $350 for your water bill (I always thought the girl above me was taking a bath), how to do the dishes right after you put them in the sink cause dollar store soap doesn’t help at all, how to handle creepy men that post notes like the one above, etc. – these are only a minor percentage of what I am very glad I learned when I was 18. I took that year off after high school, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision.

My attempt of decorating for Christmas

I proved to myself that I can make it on my own and am an independent strong woman that persevered through a lot of terrifying situations and made a lot of mistakes, and I know how to fix those mistakes now or at least have the common sense to know where to go searching. I learned the ways of not being a lazy teen and am knowledgable (kind of) about how things work in the real world.

Even the smallest lessons from that year and a half have given me so much character and depth as a person while also making me one of the people that enjoys homework at college because it’s much better than a dark room without basic needs (thank goodness for good friends). The not having a cat thing is still an issue, but that just means there is more adulting to go.

Because adults drink champagne, right?

When my brother offered to help me through college, I honestly couldn’t believe it and almost still don’t. That is the most selfless and biggest gift to be given, literally ever – I could ramble on forever, but he is super humble and would hate it so I’ll stop there. Relying on someone for everything and having to share a room my freshman year was a hard adjustment after living on my own, but it has been the greatest blessing that I pinch myself everyday to make sure life is real right now. I will graduate in two years with the tools to give the adulting thing a second chance, and hopefully this time it will be a less rocky ride.

Pitt’s Honors Convocation 2016

Take a year off from college and do you, but I would only recommend getting an apartment at 18 if you have a trust fund or were a child genius that invented something and sold it to the military for millions of dollars. You could also go for it and have it help you grow a pair for the real world (even though people will still treat you like you know nothing like Jon Snow) or else having your own place boils down to not having anyone tell you to clean your room and do the dishes and being allowed to be a noisy jerk. Good luck xx

@melanierinhaas