The twenty-five year old...

Yup. 

Quarter century club ...has almost fully left the nest, again. 

Forget boomerang generation, can you say trampoline? Lots of momentum and speed and buoyancy propelling you up only to come right back down. It may include a lot of strutting and posturing and wild-armed gesticulating providing what appears to be even greater momentum but you still come right back where you started.

Probably sounds like a complaint, right? 

Well this recent move back home  lasted more than a year  and it caused some ripples on this patch of rubber and spiralled her into a full-on regression to her teen years. My cute, personally painted, so-close-to-being-my-little-nest front room was ravaged by huge mounds of laundry and Doritos, a combo smell that may never leave. 

That probably sounded like complaining too, right?

Truth is I got a year back with her at home. She's been a dear, lovely, helpful. Wow that sentence wrote itself, my brain got hijacked there. she really didn't want to be here and some members of the family didn't make it easy for her either notnaminganycoughjaynamescough.

But finally clarity came, school plus work equals money times freedom equals and off she went full of... indecision.

She didn't gather up her forces and bound into her next life. She grabbed a little laundry here and there and dragged them to the apartment. Piece by piece (or so it seemed). What's the problem, aside from the fact the place's main living space is in an un-airconditioned attic; that it smells like all kinds of smoke; that the walls have been mired with tinged shades of old cloying nicotine? What's wrong with that? Oh yeah, the extended play heat wave, yeah that sucked the energy out of everyone but why is there still a room full of detritus from her days here? Is this a sign she's bouncing back again? 

Would a yoyo be a better metaphor? 

Determined to get her settled for good I intervened. 

"What's the problem?"

A gushing well of issues, life-questioning, future prospecting ensued. Yes, hers, very funny.

I nodded and listened and nodded some more. What could I tell her?

Your life is in kickstarter mode, you will need a little funding and encouragement from well-meaning family and friends to get your project called: "Life of insert name here" started. That it's risky, decisions are hard, adjustments take time but everything is supposed to lead to a goal of happiness, contentment, fulfillment, and bitterness that some people get that so easily and talk about on facebook ALL THE TIME. That's life. You'll work hard, it will pay for your lifestyle but there will be life changes good and bad along the way.

She knows all of that. It's not her first (or second) time living on her own. So it was a surprise to hear that she wanted to move again. Barely two weeks in and having not quite settled into her nicotine-haven near the beach. 

I summed it up in an email to a friend.

Fun Friday Fact: when your daughter has issues adapting to new environments don't feed into her crazy.

She's not settling in to her new place well SOOOOOOO she decided she needed to move AGAIN. 

Being the accommodating mother I turned to KIJIJI and found a place, booked an appointment, visited it, took pictures, and sent pictures of it to her at work.

She loved the enclosed yard! The laundry room! The location! Then she came over, we discussed the negatives, she still wanted to see it today, then she went to her (practically new-not even fully moved in, yet) place and talked to her house mate who talked her off the ledge and by 2 this morning it was decided she is not moving AGAIN. They're going to work together to make it the place they now share a home and wait out any decisions to move until they are in a better financial position to move AGAIN.

I love that she worked it out without me. I love that I got to engage in my reckless real estate-loving, decorating-judging hobby and this time it didn't cost me anything (or the husband). 

Now instead of measuring rooms and paying off someone else's rent I'm free this weekend. So I'm going to help a friend pick paint colours for her new home in Florida and shop to furnish it! And that won't cost me anything either (or the husband).

As for me and my house, I'm staying put.