Well, the sunshine that we enjoyed last week here in Louisville has departed, only to leave us with rain and the prospect of more rain. We won’t feel the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina until tomorrow at the earliest. Our weather, however, is certainly nothing to complain about. My mom called me this morning from Washington State, torn up over the news reports of New Orleans’ poor and homeless who have taken shelter in the Louisiana Superdome—where pieces of the roof are starting to fall in. Keep those folks in your thoughts and prayers.

Luckily for me, I’ve finished the bulk of my moving and have “nested” in my new place before the bulk of the rain. After two days of living by myself, I must say that I love it! There was quite a bit of fear and trepidation on my part about living alone, as you faithful blog readers know. But I think it will allow me to grow in new and exciting ways.

The first thing I noticed when moving in was that I could do everything exactly as I wanted it. In my experience (which may or may not be common to many young women), I often have people telling me how to do things. Part of it is necessary, a function of my inexperience in life. But for me, part of it is also my need to be a “people pleaser.” In other words, I will defer to the opinion of someone else rather than asserting my own. I figure that they probably know better anyway.

As I set everything up yesterday, though, there was no one else around to tell me where to put my stuff. I didn’t have to check with roommates to make sure that they liked this vase in this spot. No one told me that I should put the silverware in this drawer, or store my blankets in that closet. There is something significant about owning my own space. I am free to learn on my own, free to ask questions if I need help, free to discover for myself what works best. I can grow into this space.

Moreover, my new place is an escape from the world, where I can do things on my own terms. It goes back to the people pleaser thing—many of us women are taught to cater to the other, to be self-sacrificial for the good of someone else. Caring for others is a noble and admirable task, but completely sacrificing one’s own wholeness is not. Living on my own, I have a place to come back to where I can escape those social expectations, where I can let my guard down and relax. I can be with people if I’d like, or I can be alone. Either way, I can be me.

I know that I won’t always be this happy about living by myself. There may be lonely periods in my new place, times when the walls seem to be closing in on me. But I know what I’m going to do….

Last night I flipped an old recording of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice, the one starring Colin Firth, into the VCR. Now, watching this version of Pride and Prejudice is to female English majors what football is to many American males. When Darcy gives Elizabeth Bennett that sultry, smoldering “I want you but I’m a repressed Victorian” look, I whoop and squeal just like a die-hard Packers fan would when the receiver catches the touchdown pass.

And the beauty of living alone is that none of you can see or hear me making a fool of myself. Ahhhh.

“I kept my faith, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’” --Psalm 116:10

Kelsey

PS—Okay, so maybe the Packers fan wouldn’t “squeal,” per se, but he or she would get very excited. You get my drift.

"The first thing I noticed when moving in was that I could do everything exactly as I wanted it."

Of course, it's always been the role of women to arrange the house, especially since men have no taste when it comes to interior decorating.