Leaving home and moving into your own place is so exciting. For me, when I first left home, I moved into a dorm room. Although you are living on your own, and have finally found that sense of freedom from your parents, living in a dorm room is a sort of in between. You can stay out late if you want, but you can't be too loud or else your RA will show up at your door for the third time that week telling you to quiet down. Sure, you can get a pet...fish. Or you can be like me and get a pet hamster and have to sneak him in and out of your dorm with a blanket wrapped around his cage, and have to hide him in the bath tub when it was time for room checks.

Living in a dorm has its ups and its downs, but at the end of the day, I always found myself itching to move out, and finally be on my own, in my own apartment.

I was in for a rude awakening.

Moving into your first apartment is hard. In a dorm room, you don't have to worry about leasing agents (who don't EVER answer their phones). You don't have to worry about paying rent, or electricity. For the first time, you have to call Spectrum and set up wifi, which is a story all in its own. I give my parents major props for dealing with cable companies for the last 20 some years. Leaving dorm life means you have to cook for yourself EVERY night, instead of only when you want to act like a house wife. AND with that comes grocery shopping, which leaves you broke, and upset that you can't really live off of mac n cheese and dino nugs at age 20.

Moving into your first apartment leads to making countless dumb mistakes that you ultimately learn from. Like just today, I literally accidentally dumped my beta fish down our sink drain (rip nugget), which then led to a nervous breakdown, which THEN led to me nearly ripping my side mirror off of my car in the parking garage. What did I learn from that experience? I am not ready to be a mother.

Although I may make it seem as if living in my own apartment is an utter nightmare, it's not at all. In fact, it's the best experience I have ever had in my life. I live in a very tiny apartment in downtown Cleveland with my best friends. I share a shoe box sized bedroom with my closest friend. We have exposed brick in our apartment, we can burn candles without being paranoid the RA might catch us, and we have a view of the Indians stadium outside of our huge windows, which also means we have the BEST view of their fireworks from the comfort of our living room couch.

Some days, it might feel like we're roughing it. We have to share a set of keys because the leasing agent still doesn't answer the phone. Other days, I feel pretty successful for being able to have an apartment in downtown Cleveland at age 20.

So, what is it really like MOVING into your own apartment? Rough. What is it really like LIVING in your own apartment? Absolutely amazing.