Moving in: life lessons.

The shoebox is a small house. You would assume that with small houses you would have less hurdles to set it all up and finally settle in. Truth is, if anything, moving in can test your patience and cosmic beliefs while providing you with sound live experiences.

Here are some of the things I have learned thus far:

1. Because we have never lived in one place too long, life became a hoarding exercise of random items purchased in different corners of the world. There is no way of a classy-minimalistic approach to decor in this.
2. If you have ever wondered what being color blinds feels like, a paint store will help you notice you cannot tell the 50 shades of white.
3. I have great friends, but not that great. When I said boxes and house in the same sentence, there was only dust left from their escape.
4. Buying furniture is the most horrible part of adulting (what if nothing fits or matches?!). How do people make a career out of this?! Newfound serious admiration for an interior designer ability and all the anxiety it produces.
5. Obsessing over a square meter of grass is a real issue in a man’s heart. The amount of weeds present is proportional to the level of despair.
6. Furniture takes more than 8 weeks to be delivered. By the time you get it, you forgot what you bought in the first place. Halt in any décor intentions until the big items arrive.
7. Mess is everywhere. More cupboards mean more hideouts; THAT is the real life hack.
8. Empty living rooms make for the best dance floors.
9. You cannot try every seed-planting video on YouTube. Onions will refuse to grow, so will baobab trees.
10. Ironing is the mother of all punishments.
11. Soggy food in a kitchen sink can only be dealt with by brave women. Men are weak.
12. It takes time to accept you are surrounded by other unknown humans.
13. You will find yourself googling Airbnb rules to stop your neighbors from renting out the next door house to people who enjoy having loud sex in the mornings.
14. You may come in touch with your murderous self when squirrels destroy the thatch roof and you think of all the $$ needed to repair it.
15. Venezuelan paranoia will never abandon you when you are in a city. You will never be comfortable sleeping alone in a house without shutting close all windows and locking all (and sleeping with a bat next to your bed just in case).
16. You don’t need all the clothes you own.
17. When you get rid of excess garments, you will need every single item you got rid of.
18. It is not acceptable in normal societies to wear khaki everyday (but watch us try).
19. You will gain weight from everything you can now bake. Keep it in mind to bribe friends for box carrying favors.
20. You can survive hot days in a unicorn pool. If you and your partner don’t fit, stop baking.