With the entire family back in the house for the holidays, I am more certain that I need to move out. Not because I hate my family or that I can’t stand them, but because I still feel like a child in many ways the longer I live under my parents’ roof.

My older sister lectured me last night on how I don’t let my mother know that I’m going out, with whom I’m going out, and when I am likely to return. Despite my rebuttals that I am an “adult” and that I am “responsible enough to take care of myself,” she continued to emphasize my lack of respect for my parents.

I know children are taking longer to leave the house nowadays and I understand the plethora of reasons behind this, seeing as how I am one of those miserable statistics. I hate that money is such an obstacle for people like me who aren’t exactly living in squalour, but don’t have the financial safety net to catch me if there is ever a problem that I can’t handle on my own. And I hate that even when I feel justified in complaining about the latter, I will always feel guilty because of the former.

As much as I tell my family that I am, in fact, an adult who doesn’t need to report the goings-on of my life to her elders, I don’t completely believe it myself. Because I am still at home, still sleeping on the same twin bed that I’ve slept in since I was ten, and still relying on my parents for the bare necessities of food, shelter and mucho laundry.