Clutch Magazine: Surviving Mom and Dad's Basement

As a two-time veteran of getting stuck at your parents' house even though you're an adult who's lived on their own for years, I decided to give some tips to the readers at Clutch Magazine Online. Namely, set some boundaries if you don't want to have the weird, slightly co-dependent relationship I have with my own mother.

Here's a snippet:

Speaking of 2007, that was when I made my first return to the homestead after I left a job as a newspaper reporter to get my head, life, and career back together while not having to worry about rent. I can’t say I handled my first trip back to the basement all that well, considering I was severely ill at the time, battling Bipolar Disorder and was extremely depressed. I was largely unpleasant to be around and mostly wanted to disappear into the concrete beneath my basement, bedroom floor. But since my slightly older-than-most-Boomer parents are really more like Depression Era survivors, with their fiscal nature and love of saving, I received less grief about my finances and more grief about being an adult my mother still saw as her child.

Nothing like being suddenly informed you have a curfew at 30 years old.

Read the full post at Clutch Magazine Online.