I like thinking about new houses. I like the idea of moving into a new place where all the surfaces are clear and clean. I can very deliberately position furniture here, belongings there. Everything would have its place. It’d be easy to keep tidy because I’d have systems.

Yesterday, as I was picking through the mess that is my bedroom, I had an epiphany. I can’t even keep my little bedroom tidy — how on earth could I expect to look after an entire house?!

This is what I’ve decided. It will be time to move out of my familial home, not when I get save enough for a house deposit, not when I begin to crave independence, not even when I get married. My readiness to move out will be signalled only by when my bedroom experiences three months of continual neatness.