I had always been told to never move out of my parents’ house. “Live with your parents for as long as you can! Milk it until they make you move out”. Once I graduated from high school, I moved to college. Granted, I went to a school only thirty minutes from my home, I still was able to experience what it was like living on my own for those four years; or at least I THOUGHT I experienced living on my own.

After earning my degree in my Undergrad in May of this year, I packed up my car in Delaware County, Pa, and drove to Miami, Florida. With no job and no apartment, I was living out of my car for a little over two weeks (https://youtu.be/u-odcHxo8JQ). After those two weeks, my grandmother had opened her home to me, and allowed me to stay in her extra bedroom until I could get myself together. A month after moving in, my grandmother had passed away in the hospital. Luckily, and what I will always look at as a blessing from my grandmother, on the day of her passing I had been given a position as a therapist in an office in Doral and had received a call from my realtor letting me know that he had found an apartment for me to move into.

With only two-thousand dollars in my back account, I put a deposit on my apartment, and began training as a therapist. Four months later, and I can say that I have never made a better decision in my life. Obviously, staying in Pennsylvania and living with my parents would have been a thousand times easier for me. I would have gotten a job in Center City Philadelphia, had a place to live without paying rent, and would have had a home cooked meal every night. But, that just was not the life I had decided I wanted to live at 22 years old. Since I was 16, I began my first job working at American Eagle. From that age on, I have always had a job, or multiple. If I wanted something, I bought it for myself with my own money. I bought my first and my second car myself, and have always been taught to work for the things I wanted. Naturally, I knew that moving to Miami with practically nothing was probably not the smartest idea I ever had, but it was what I wanted to do and I knew that I would make it work for myself.

I currently live in a perfect little two-bedroom apartment with my best friend

, and work as a therapist for Behavioral Analysis Inc and waitress for Carolina Ale House. As I will say, this was most definitely the hardest obstacle that I have had to overcome and am still working hard so that I don’t need to live paycheck to paycheck; but I will always, no matter what, encourage those around me to step out of their comfort zone and take a risk. We all know that family and home cooked meals are hard to pass up, but there is nothing better than living in a place that you worked hard for, cooking your own meals and making your own memories. So, if I can do it, at just 22 years old, you can do it to, and I promise that if you work hard for it, you will have zero regrets.