I’m 23, and I live at home with my parents.  It’s not quite as embarrassing to admit as it would have been, say, a decade ago.  It’s so expensive to move out, for one thing; my parent’s place is gigantic (room for more!); I don’t have to clean up after myself (yes, Mum, I’ll clean my room.. when I want to) and, well, it’s just so easy.  At least, so I’ve told myself for the last five years.  (Five years before that I was hating my parents, the world, school, and boys, and wanted to wear black and listen to Marilyn Manson all day.)

But things are getting a little, well, stale.  I’ll be the first to say there’s nothing wrong with my family or my living situation.  Hell, I have an incredible disposable income.  But sometimes there’s just this desire to suffer.  I want to wake up on a Saturday and groan because I have an apartment with various toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms to clean (I’m very spoilt at home.)  I want to choose my furniture.  Oh, hell, I want to pay the rent late and have someone very cross on the phone telling me they have seven kids to feed.

Of course, I’m not the kind of person to do things by halves.  It would be easy to move out into Sydney’s inner ‘burbs.  Too easy.  I’m not thinking about simply throwing down a deposit on a place and being out of home next week.  Oh, no.  I want to move – to California.

There are a couple of reasons I have chosen a destination over twelve thousand kilometres away (about 7.5k miles).  One, a boy.  (What else!) He’s adorable, charming, and is prepared to move in with me.  That solves problem #1, and that’s getting around; as convenient as the US is, it is not known for its public transport.  Two, the booming IT industry.  Sure.  I could choose any place in the world and say the same thing (except maybe Uzbekistan or any city in Australia) but there is no place quite as appealing as SIlicon Valley to a little tech head like me.

Three, that a lot of people speak English.  I guess I don’t like the thought of having to learn a new language and settle in as well.

And finally, that it’s twelve thousand miles away from everything I know.  There’s no running home to Mum and Dad if I get scared, or if there’s a spider in my room (ack!) or if I lock myself out of the house (which I just did last Saturday).  This is me, and this is the world, and hello me, welcome to Harsh Reality.

I’ve given myself just over seven months to work this out.  It sounds like a long time; it sounds like no time at all.  I am scared, and I am getting prepared.  Hopefully I can use this blog as a bit of an outlet and a bit of a motivator(!) to burst my idyllic childhood bubble and get the hell out of here.