‘I’m 28 and living with my parents. Again.’

“Living with your parents is free because you pay with your soul.” So read a meme I sent to my sister last week. “Crying face emoji,” she replied… which was apt considering I was. Crying, that is.  

Just over three months ago, I made the decision to move home. Just over three months ago, I signed my social life over to the devil* (*my parents for the purpose of this article). “How’s it going?” a friend asked the other day. I resisted the urge to scream. 

Returning back to the bosom of the family home has been interesting, to say the least. Lying in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by relics of my adolescent past isn’t quite as nostalgic as I envisioned. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t… this. 

I lived in Dublin for five years, in five different houses. Before that, I lived in Galway all through my college years (save for Erasmus). I slept in cold bedrooms, co-habited with good housemates and bad, dealt with terrible, invasive landlords and had more domestic spats than I can count on two hands – I’m conflict-averse so that’s really saying something. Rent is extortionate, monthly bills are almost unpayable. And many people my age (late-twenties) can’t justify it any more.

All of my friends are emigrating and I feel stuck in a system that is essentially pushing me out the door. According to recent EU statistics, over two-thirds of Irish people aged 25-29 live with their parents – a figure that’s doubled in the last decade. Another study suggests that more than 70% of young people in Ireland are considering moving abroad. I’d wager that figure is considerably higher given that essentially everyone I know has moved to Australia, New Zealand, London or Canada in the past four years. It doesn’t feel like Ireland, much less Dublin, wants me. 

And so I hightailed it home, where I’ve been acclimatising to rural life for the past 88 days… but who’s counting, right? Dinner is at 5pm, we watch no less than two showings of the news per evening (once at 5:30pm, then again at 6pm and often at 9pm too) and Judge Judy is considered relaxing post-work entertainment. “Listen to me! Shut up and listen! Stop talking! I don’t want to hear noise! NO!,” the cantankerous TV personality shouts at us as we shovel spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into our gobs and regale each other with tales from the outside world. My commute is five steps from my bed so I generally have less to contribute. Deliveroo doesn’t exist down grass-lined country lanes and I spend two hours a night at my local gym simply to get out of the house.

I’ve inadvertently become the in-house tech genius – despite lack of knowledge, patience or any genuine interest – and have been corralled into explaining how to return online shopping orders on more than one occasion. It’s entirely my fault; early on in my lodging, I made the mistake of mentioning Google Docs to my dad as I watched him desperately try to reboot his 15-year-old laptop so he could use Word (the only computer that still has it). His eyes shimmered with glee at the concept… 97 minutes later and I regretted that I was ever born. When my boyfriend comes to visit, he’s rounded up for organised fun – by which I mean a brisk walk and a celebratory cappuccino from the nearest petrol station… often scheduled at 9am so we can “seize the day”.  

When I run into old school friends in the one nice coffee shop in town, I feel embarrassed to admit that I’ve moved home, even though most of them have done the same. I’m part of Generation Boomerang but there’s a lingering sense of shame that’s hard to shift. Can everyone see my newly acquired “I couldn’t make it on my own” forehead tattoo, or…? During lockdown, Robert Pattinson said he felt like he was “pinwheeling through space and anxiety and history”. I feel similarly. 

All jokes aside though, I know I’m incredibly privileged. My parents are much cooler than I give them credit for and I’m so thankful they didn’t change the locks the first time I moved out (I would have). My four siblings and I have always been welcome, encouraged even, to return home and “figure things out”. My brother moved home for a few months while he was between houses; just as he flew the nest, I darted back in. There could be anywhere from three people to eight sitting around our kitchen table at any given weekend and there’s always a key hidden for us to let ourselves in (my dad told me not to post that on Facebook but I presume in print it is fine…).

So, yes, it’s hard to feel like you’re regressing, but life isn’t always linear and often, forward progress requires at least a few steps back. Does it get better though? No worries if not. 

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of IMAGE Magazine.

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