I’ve been living on my own in DC for a month now. I’m still alive and thriving, so you could say it has been a success, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing. Undertaking this voyage, to continue my metaphor, I was wary of encountering tsunamis that would knock me completely off course, which had the unexpected effect of causing all the little waves that pushed me slightly off balance to be incredibly humbling. You see, I certainly wasn’t expecting to move in here and find living alone to be a piece of cake, so my fears of the worst-case scenarios prevented me from realizing that I’d encounter little speed bumps that would remind me that not everything is going to go my way. I share them with you because they might be things that you fail to anticipate someday if you ever live on your own in a city, or because it might just be entertaining to read about the minor obstacles I’ve had to overcome.

1. When it rains, it pours.

To quote my dad, “A little rain never hurt anyone,” but a little rain doesn’t seem like just a little rain when you have to walk to the metro. Yes, I have an umbrella, but no, I don’t have rain boots, and I’ve never been more tempted to forgo my walk to the metro and take an Uber to work. Just reading that last sentence makes me realize how ridiculous I was being (#firstworldproblems), but at the time I forgot that there are such things as small problems, so the rain became a disaster.

2. What’s that magical tool that drains water from pasta?

Considering pasta is pretty much all I have bothered to learn to cook, it’d be pretty convenient to have a strainer on hand. My mom’s kitchen has somehow amassed every cooking implement known to man over the course of her life, so it was impossible to be unprepared when cooking at home. While forcing myself to be resourceful (by using the lid), I was kicking myself for being unable to realize the need for a strainer, and couldn’t help but wonder what else I’m missing that I wouldn’t realize until it were too late.

3. Lanyards can be cool I guess.

When you live on your own, you really shouldn’t leave your place unlocked. There’s nobody in it to let you back in. Therefore, you have to carry your key with you everywhere, which I hate. Between having no secure way to carry my keys on a run and constantly losing my keys in the bottom of my backpack, the resurgence of the lanyard is not to be laughed at, but perhaps one could laugh at how burdened I feel by having to carry my keys.

4. The Walking Dead.

Not only is my medicine cabinet on the top of my dresser, but it didn’t have any medicine in it until I had to start playing doctor for myself. I got really sick and really had no way to deal with it, which was pretty much as close as I’ve come to not being alive and thriving while living on my own. I had to drag my clueless self in my super stylish pajamas to the nearby 7/11 to buy medicine, feeling bitter that I had to take care of myself, which is usually not the best indicator of being successfully independent.

5. Did you know that lots of people work in DC?

I had every aspect of my metro commute figured out except for the fact that I wouldn’t be the only person riding it. Knowing the route to take and stops to follow is an entirely different experience when not only does the attempt to get a seat feel like a rigged game of musical chairs, but having room to breathe and not making physical contact with strangers becomes a luxury. I should’ve expected the metro during morning rush hour to be crowded, but I still enter the Farragut West station each morning hoping that for some reason all the other commuters won’t be there to make me feel like I’m traveling in a school of fish.

6. I’ve started collecting quarters.

Since I live in a dorm building, my laundry situation is that of a laundromat. It takes me 14 quarters to wash and dry a single load, so by the time the summer is over, I will have gone through approximately 140 quarters. That’s a lot of quarters, which is a lot of money, and I honestly never really thought about pocket change as being valuable before.

7. The ridiculous-looking mullet equivalent of commuting attire.

There’s no better feeling than going to your first day of work, dressed to the nines from head to toe. Except that of going to your first day of work, dressed to the nines from head to ankle. Business casual shoes certainly match business casual attire better than sneakers or flip-flops and make me feel super professional, but it isn’t worth the blisters from walking more than absolutely necessary in them. Real quick did I make the transition to business on top and comfy on my feet.

8. An unbalanced breakfast.

The newspaper isn’t delivered to my doorstep and breakfast table anymore. I also don’t have a breakfast table, but that’s besides the point. Reading the newspaper at breakfast is a key part of my identity, but apparently my identity can be shaken by not having the desire to walk to the end of the street and pick up a newspaper. And for some reason I can’t read the newspaper at any other time of day. I might need a new routine with the paper included at some other time, and that’s pretty scary.

9. Laziness is a skill.

There’s so much to do in DC all the time! This isn’t really anything to complain about, especially for someone like me who gets bored easily, but I also don’t find it nearly as fun to do things when I’m doing them on my own. My solution has been to do things with people when they visit and to not take advantage of the city when I don’t have visitors. Yet, not taking advantage of my surroundings doesn’t seem quite right. I’ve succumbed to major city guilt! Whenever I’m having a nice night watching a movie on my own, I can’t help but feel as if there are a ton of better things I could be doing.

10. What's the second rule of being an elf?

I forgot one of the rules of being an elf–that there’s room for everyone on the nice list. All hyped up about being in a city by myself where people are mean and try to get from point A to point B has eroded my faith that people are generally nice. I sneezed as I was leaving the metro and I wasn’t expecting a single bless you. I hope I didn’t look too visibly surprised but I know I did when one man made direct eye contact with me and smiled and said bless you and another stopped his frantic jog toward the train to turn around and also say bless you. I was shocked at how shocked I was that people were actually showing me kindness, which isn’t the way I want to see the world.

11. “You think you can do these things but you just can’t, Nemo!”

Nemo wants to be independent and his dad doesn’t think he’s ready and tries to keep him in the anemone as long as possible. My brain is pretty much a cross between Nemo and his dad, where I genuinely do want to be independent and feel a sense of fulfillment from taking care of myself, but simultaneously am in denial that I actually can do it because I don’t always want to.

Moral of the story: Living on my own has taught me that I’m totally capable of doing so, but that I’m fortunate that I still don’t really have to. I’m in that awkward phase in life where I'm not an adult or a kid, and my solution to that was to fast-forward to being an adult, but after getting caught in the rain, eating wet pasta, wearing a lanyard, trying not to be sick, being sick of crowds, hoping people drop quarters, re-evaluating my shoes, scavenging for newspaper, developing a love/hate relationship with being lazy and losing and regaining my faith in humanity, I think I’ll try to remember that I’m really only 19 and that life is still hard.