girl in the city

i always believe that a girl should be capable of living on her own at one point in her life. Going solo has its own rewards after all. For the most part, one can readily admit that the first few months (even years) of independence are the hardest. Coping with a lot of things such as loneliness and depression could prove to be difficult at first. Most especially when it comes to handling finances. Naturally, since one only has herself to rely on, one is forced to overcome obstacles/difficulties. Thus, a girl could learn to look for an apartment on her own, navigate the streets, run some errands, ask for directions without looking so utterly perplexed or clueless, do groceries and even find the best buys around the metropolis.

I have done that myself. After exiting the confines of my alma mater, I insisted on living on my own and bid for my independence. I have experienced scouting for the cheapest place to live during the first year, most of the time ending up compromising other considerations such as privacy, accessibility and of course, security. I have learned to clean up my place once I moved in, arrange things in their proper order and make myself dinner (merely opening a can of tuna will do). Money matters gave me a major headache when I was still starting out in the city. And since asking relatives for financial support was out of the question, I had to make do with what little money I have. Once I've experienced stretching my salary to the extent that my dinner consisted of one order of a personal-sized pizza from greenwich shared with another cash-strapped college classmate just so I can make ends meet. There were times when I just felt helpless. There were times as well when I felt lost and disoriented and not sure of myself.

Oh yes, I have also experienced having butterflies on my stomach during the first few weeks on my first job. I couldn't understand why I had moments of panic, one of those feelings that makes you wanna bolt out the door. And yet in all of these adjustments and trials I have encountered, there's only one thing I have noticed. I have never in my entire life replaced a single light bulb in the many places that I moved into. It has always been ready and brand new everytime I move to a new place. Otherwise, the landlord's househelp would just replace them. I know, replacing a light bulb could probably the easiest thing a girl can do around the house if she's living alone. I would love to try that sometimes. Plumbing is a major problem too. Usually, if I couldn't do anything about repairs, then tough luck! I just leave it be. I have to admit I'm a bit clueless when it comes to home repairs. And please don't give me all that crap about me being a 'girl' for not being an expert on troubleshooting the house. Anyways, a girl can just learn to do it if she really wants to. One can just buy one of those books for dummies, you know.

I once saw this survival book from humor post a couple of years ago. Everything's in that book, whether if you're a city girl or a country girl or a traveller/jetsetter. You could easily find solutions or answers from the most difficult to the downright silly stuff if in case you found yourself in that particular situation. I should've bought that book when I saw it. The only thing that stopped me then was the availability of moolah. I happened to be broke when I chanced upon the book. I bought a different survival book a couple of months back but it wasn't that complete. These days, I still try to resolve matters the way I know how, sometimes I get help from friends. As far as I know, I'm still a work in progress when it comes to troubleshooting my life.