It’s crazy to think about how I was living with 13 other girls in a massive villa in Spain just a year ago, and now I’m living alone in a single bedroom apartment in Serbia. In Spain, it was almost impossible to have time alone (sometimes not even when going to the bathroom haha), and now time alone is a lot of my day! Complete polar opposite experiences. Of course, I see friends throughout the week and have practice every day, so I’m not some hermit without social contact. But living alone was definitely a big adjustment I had to adapt to because I am a very social person.
Living alone was never something I saw myself doing. I always imagined myself continuing to live with teammates, friends, and family. And in the future, when the time is right I imagined moving in with a significant other. Therefore, I never saw living alone in my future, and living alone in a foreign country was COMPLETELY out of question. When I initially came to Serbia, I came with three other Americans and we lived with each other in an apartment. However, Jazz, Kim, and Leslie did not return to Serbia after Christmas break, and I was left to return to Serbia solo. So, I’ve been living on my own in Serbia for the past 5 months. It was never intended for me to be living alone, but it just happened to work itself out that way.
This has been a challenge at times, but also a blessing because there are so many things I have learned about myself during this period. I really do miss having roommates and being surrounded by friends 24/7, but I think it was meant to be that I spent this time alone to discover myself. I don’t see myself living alone again after this chapter in Serbia, but I am grateful for this experience.
I’ll be sharing what living on my own has taught me and how I have grown from this experience. I know living on your own is a big step in adulthood and can be challenging or scary. Hopefully, this will give a better perspective to see the positives of being alone.
5 Skills I’ve Learned:
- Positive Self Talk: When you spend so much time alone, you become the person you talk to the most. This sounds crazy and a little sad haha, but you basically have to become your own best friend! I had to change the way I was talking to myself because I didn’t realize how negative I was about myself beforehand. Being surrounded by so many roommates, friends, teammates, and family 24/7, I didn’t think about the way I talked to myself because I was so busy talking to the people I was surrounded with. So being alone has forced me to be more positive in my thoughts about myself and life in general. If my thoughts and the way I think about myself are negative, then I would spend most of the day being pretty depressed. I had to become a person I enjoyed being with, otherwise, I would have been miserable.
- Self-Reliance: Living and traveling on my own forced me to become fiercely independent. My abilities grew because most challenges or problems that arose, I had to figure out on my own. I’ve learned to trust my intuition more and have gained confidence in my abilities to handle tough situations. You really have to be more careful, cautious, and aware because sometimes there isn’t someone immediately there to help you if a problem arises (For example, missing your bus at midnight in a foreign city and having to wait until 6 am for the next one. Or losing your keys and being locked out of your apartment in the middle of the night…). I’ve had to gain some lessons the hard way but have gotten through them alive and well!
- Outgoing-ness: Because I have been fortunate enough to live with my teammates and friends since moving away from my parent’s home, I never had to put myself out there in an effort to make new friends. I’ve always had my best friends living with me. As a result, I have never been forced to be super outgoing. So, living in Serbia has really pushed me outside of my comfort zone because I have had to be the one to initiate hang-outs and plans. I am not super close with my teammates because of the language barrier, so I have made many friends outside of my fútbol circle who speak great English. I became really comfortable having conversations with new people in social environments and being the one to initiate meet-ups. I was very self-conscious at first because I thought that if people weren’t texting me to hang out that meant they didn’t want to see me. I’ve realized this is not true at all and people are just busy or feeling the exact same way about you! This opened my eyes to know there’s no harm in reaching out to others.
- Self-Awareness: I have always been a “go with the flow” type of girl and am pretty indecisive when it comes to making decisions. I mainly do what the group wants and am typically content with it! I like to make others happy and that determines my decision-making. But now that I am living alone, I don’t have an immediate group to lean on for decisions. So every decision I make (outside of fútbol) is for myself. This was a challenge because, in the beginning, I really didn’t know what I wanted. I spent a lot of time overthinking about what I should be doing instead of just doing something! Therefore, I’ve had to become very hyperaware of myself and my desires in order to change. I had to look inward and do things that I genuinely wanted to do or would make me happy. I’ve stopped thinking about what I should be doing or what I think other people think I should do. I care less now what others think of me and do what makes me genuinely happy. If I want to go on an adventure, I’m going to do it even if no one else can join me and the people here think I’m crazy for it. If I want to see friends, I will reach out to them even if they didn’t text me first. If I’m feeling tired, I will cancel plans or head home early and not feel guilty for it. Basically, everything I do is for myself now and what I truly want at a specific time. I’ve learned to listen to myself and honor my feelings. I’m still the “go with the flow girl”, but now I know when I want to change direction and standstill.
- Breaking and Creating Habits: to elaborate on my previous point on becoming hyperaware, this also helped me to break bad habits and form new and better ones. Being alone a lot of the time could have heightened my bad habits because there is no one here to keep me in check. Luckily, my time alone forced me to internalize and deeply question why I do certain things, which helped me break these habits instead. And on the flip side, this new self-awareness has highlighted who I want to become and where I want to grow which influenced me to create new and better habits. I have a lot of free time here, so I decided I needed to make this free time beneficial. These new habits and routines help fill my day and aim to make me grow. Obviously, I’m not perfect and revert to my old habits at times, but now I’m way more disciplined and can get back on track faster.
I hope this gives a little insight into some of the ways living alone can become a positive experience! Thanks for taking the time to read, everyone! If any of you have lived alone, I’d love to hear what you learned from that experience or some of the challenges you faced. Feel free to comment below or email me. Peace and Love!
Authentically Ady 