It?s not a scenario that would work for everyone, but I wouldn?t change a thing It was a hot, humid July evening in Atlanta. I was sitting with a handful of friends at a bar, swirling my happy-hour cocktail and trying to figure out my next move?literally.
I was living with my sister, Emily, but my boyfriend, Sean, and I wanted to move in together. I felt torn: I enjoyed living with Emily and didn?t want to abandon her, but I also saw a future with Sean. His current lease was ending, and I wasn?t jazzed about another year of back-and-forth sleepovers at our respective spaces.
Then a friend offered a solution I?d considered but hadn?t said out loud. ?Why don?t you just? all move in... together"? It sounded self-serving, and I wasn?t sure either party would go for it?who wants to live with her sister?s boyfriend or his girlfriend?s sister" But I also thought it just might work. Emily and I, two years apart and both in our late 20s, had moved in together the previous fall. My long-term relationship with my live-in boyfriend imploded when I found out he?d cheated, and I found myself both heartbroken and in need of a roommate for my tiny two-bedroom Poncey-Highland apartment. Luckily, Emily had just graduated from her physical therapy assistant program and wanted to move out of our parents? house.
We hadn?t shared a roof for more than a summer since I?d moved to Atlanta, four hours north of our hometown, nearly a decade earlier. It turned out that living with som...