When I moved back in with my dad in July, I felt like I was making the smartest financial choices possible. I had just lost my job. My lease was up on my apartment. My industry was still in ruins.

I figured I’d stay a few weeks until I got sorted.

I’ve bounced back home between tours and contracts a lot since I graduated high school, with the longest stop being four months in the summer of 2015, when I was working for a children’s theater company and we went dark for the summer. Our tour ended late May and I knew the next one would start in the middle of September.

I have (and am) so grateful that my parents were always willing to take me in. It has honestly been the #1 reason behind my ability to build wealth. Also, there were a lot of times I might only be home for two or three weeks twice a year and they were who I wanted to see during that time anyway. Grateful is always an understatement.

It’s a very different feeling coming home without a plan.

In 2012, when I quit cruise ships, I came home without a plan and I didn’t feel too great about it. I still had a rough plan of trying to figure out how to get Ringling Brothers to hire me. I only wound up being home for two months.

That is the only other time I walked through my parents front doors without knowing when I would be leaving again.

We are now on month seven. My mental health hasn’t been doing so great with this whole thing (which I know is like the understatement of the year for everyone regarding 2020/21).

The fall was really my breaking point. I have been in a real funk since like October. I started looking at crazy cheap houses I would probably die in if I bought them because I could afford to buy them with cash.

Seriously, one of them was straight out of a horror movie.

I realized around that time, I just had to make it the end of January for me to not ruin this good financial decision.

Friends! I did. I made it. I just got my last W2 as of today.

Which means I can file my taxes.

Which means I can reapply for mortgages with two years of tax returns that reflect a similar combo of W2 and 1099 work.

And if they say no this time, there’s not much I can do about it. So I can go rent an apartment somewhere and not feel like I’m just throwing away money.

Or I can buy an RV and begin my life as a location independent nomad.

But however you slice it, I can make smarter financial decisions instead of knee-jerk ones.

I did naively think when I moved in back in July that by now the pandemic would be fairly sorted (I actually had ridiculous dreams that maybe the Christmas show I worked in 2019 would be back for 2020 – oh sweet summer child, how little you knew). This still puts an edge of uncertainty into my plans.

Anyway, just the fact that I feel like I can move forward with smarter plans rather than plans that could put me in a less than ideal financial situation is taking a massive weight off my shoulders.

In an effort to not make those insane knee jerk decisions, I actually rented an AirBnB for several weeks by an off-season beach. Between my taxes being done and some extended time to myself, I’m hopeful that when I get back things will be in position to actually make some decisions.

The stagnancy of this last year is driving me nuts.

I suppose the point of this post is if you are among the large number of millennials who moved back home and are super grateful but struggling a bit, just know you’re not alone. I totally understand the overwhelming gratitude you feel for your parents helping you out but also the “I really think I need to not be here” feeling and the struggle of balancing the two. Especially if you have lovely parents who are like “why would you ever leave?” which makes you want to run screaming down the road in terror because, like, why would you ever leave? Should you leave? Do you need a concrete reason to leave other than that you are an adult? Are you an adult anymore? What is happening?

Cough.

Right. Anyway. I see you.