Being single and living alone can be amazing but let's not forget the mental load

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It seems like only yesterday that I was writing to you to let you know I was packing up my entire life, going to stay with my parents and in fact permanently moving back to Shropshire. By the time I move out next Saturday, it will be four and half months since the day I left London, my home for six and a half years. The day after I arrived home, after being driven by the nicest removal van ever, lockdown began and Boris Johnson made his famous address to the UK to say that we must stay at home. This means I have spent more than four months living with my parents at aged 35.

I never expected this to happen. In all my wildest dreams about moving back to Shrewsbury, none of them involved staying with my parents for more than a week or two. In fact, when my sister asked at Christmas if that is what I intended to do if I did move back I replied saying “Over my dead body.” Now I am starting to feel apprehensive about moving out. It’s partly because I’ve got so used to it and it really has be…