Settling Down & Spiralling Out
How do you settle down when you’ve never learned how to stay?
Still the same stare. Still spiralling, sometimes. But I’ve stopped trying to outrun the idea of belonging.
I think my fear of commitment shows up most clearly when I’m choosing a new place to live, because I’m so scared of getting it wrong. Again.
The first place I ever lived alone was my university halls. Structurally, there were no major issues. But emotionally? That’s another story. It was the first space where I gained a semblance of independence, and yet it stripped so much of me away. I came out of those two years with a lot of trauma. And it leaves you with this haunting question: if I’d chosen a different building, would everything that happened… still have happened?
After two years of halls, I moved into a few house shares. They weren’t bad, in fact, the houses were lovely. But I never felt settled. The trauma lingered too heavily. Derby was stained by memories I couldn’t scrub out.
Post-graduation, I had no clue where to go. Like I’ve shared in past posts, my mum had moved away from Sheffield, the city I grew up in, so I no longer felt anchored there. I didn’t want to stay in Derby, and my mum’s new place meant nothing to me. Plus, it was in the middle of nowhere. So I ended up in Lincolnshire, mostly because my best friend was living there and a flat happened to come up next door. My great-grandma had lived in the area her whole life, so it felt like there was some kind of tie. But looking back, I think I was searching for meaning instead of creating my own.
Then the flat flooded. I moved into my mum’s new house for what turned into a full year. At the time, I thought it was fate, that maybe what I needed was solitude. To be somewhere quiet and unfamiliar. But it turns out that kind of isolation doesn’t work for me. I need hustle. I need noise. I need movement to feel alive.
So in August 2023, I moved to Leeds, a decision that felt kind of random at the time. Flash forward six months, and the flat I shared turned out almost as leaky as the last. I was thrown into moving in with my boyfriend - something you can read more about here. Suddenly, I wasn’t just floating anymore. I went from not knowing where to live, being single or in shitty situationships and having a remote job, to working a new hybrid job, a steady relationship, and a growing love for the city. I was tied to somewhere, and someone, for the first time in a long time. It brought up a lot of my fear around commitment, something that I knew I had, but managed to suppress due to my, let’s say, commitment-less lifestyle up until that point.
Looking back, I think my upbringing has a lot to do with it. I grew up in a very small family, just me, my brother, and my mum. Her friends came and went (the fierce independence I get from my mum, I think also manifests into us both feeling like we’re better off alone…), and she had no contact with her biological family. There were no ordered weekly visits to grandparents, nor big family birthdays to consider. We lived in our own little bubble. I was also bullied throughout school, which, in its own way, reinforced my need to keep my circle tight and protected.
That experience of isolation, feeling like I never really fit in, has carried through into my adult life. I’ve always been cautious about who I let close, a bit wary of long-term connections, even when they feel good. But when I met my boyfriend and experienced the warmth of his larger family network, it was like a revelation. It was so new to me, but I loved it. The idea of having all these people to care for, and to be cared by, was something I didn’t know I needed. It made me realise that there’s room for more than just my little bubble, and that some connections can feel like home too, as long as I’m ready for them.
The funny thing is: I hate it when day-to-day plans change. I find it disruptive, overwhelming. But I somehow thrive on long-term change. It feeds my commitment issues in a strange, almost positive way. When change is forced upon me, it gives me permission to move, to adapt, without feeling like I’ve failed. I’m not flaking. I’m responding. It’s not my fault. I’m not in control.
I’m rooted in Leeds now. I’m rooted in my relationship. I’m friends with my boyfriend’s friends, and I’m close with his family. I’ve built my own network here too, friends, creative collaborators, professional connections. I have a new job I genuinely adore, and I’ve found pockets of the city that I love just as much. Leeds feels like home, whatever home means.
The commitment issues still crop up, is this really where I’m meant to be long-term?, but I think I’ve come to realise they matter less now. I’ve started to fall in love with the feeling of belonging somewhere.
I think the fear of “getting it wrong” comes from the fact that when I do, it causes so much internal chaos. But there’s also this strange sense of relief, like I said before, when change is forced upon me, it gives me an out. It gives me permission to listen to that voice that tells me I always need to move to protect myself.
Protect myself from what, though?
From a place not living up to the expectations I placed on it? From disappointment? From stagnation?
I’ve always believed that something doesn’t have to be forever to be meaningful, that things can be good and still come to an end. So maybe it’s the same with home. Maybe, to feel settled and happy somewhere, it doesn’t need to be a forever thing. It just needs to give you peace in the meantime. A peace that’s defined by not constantly thinking “what’s next?”, something I haven’t quite mastered yet.
I’m looking forward to our next move, though, because it feels more long-term. I always knew our city centre flat wasn’t going to be somewhere we “settled”, but a house in the ‘burbs with a garden? That feels like somewhere we might stay for a bit, at least for now.
Maybe that’s what settling really is, not a grand, final decision or a forever kind of thing, but a gentle choosing. A quiet agreement with yourself that, for now, this is enough. That you can stop spiralling, stop scanning the horizon, and let yourself enjoy what’s right in front of you.
If all my weird housing experiences have taught me anything, it’s that you never really know what’s going to happen next. Even when you bet on something being permanent, life has a way of reshuffling everything. And yet, every so-called “failed” attempt - every flood, every too-quiet village, every flat that didn’t quite feel like mine - has brought me right here. To a city I love. To a relationship I cherish. To a career I’m proud of. To friends I can’t imagine my life without. To a version of home that, finally, feels like it fits.
Commitment, I’m learning, doesn’t have to mean permanence. Sometimes it just means presence. And right now, I’m present. Rooted, even. Not because I’ve got all the answers, but because I’ve stopped trying to outrun the idea of belonging.