After eight years of living in student housing, Paula Dubbink feels like she say adjö to the shared life. But she still sees many pros to living together with others.
Last year Sydsvenskan published an article about a Danish form of living called oldekollet: older people living together in a kind of collective.
Everyone had their own room or villa, but there was a communal house with kitchen and living room. Together, the seniors took care of the shared areas and the garden, had breakfast and organized activities like a book club.
O joy – a student house for the elderly. If I were over sixty-five, I’d seriously consider moving in.
Having lived in no fewer than six different student houses I guess that I am allowed to consider myself an expert on living with others – I’m not used to anything else, simply.
I have shared kitchens with dozens of housemates from all over the world. That has resulted in wonderful conversations and delicious dinners as much as it has resulted in irritation over that one person that just doesn’t understand the concept of “doing your own dishes before leaving”.
Recently, I heard a housemate say that at some point it would be time to start up “real adult life”, i.e. to start living alone or together with one’s partner. I understood what he meant – but I heartily disagree.
True, in a student house I don’t have to deal with mortgage and the janitor helps out when my socket breaks down. And whenever I have bought all ingredients for my cake except the flour, I can steal borrow from a housemate.
But in my eyes, that doesn’t make student housing anything else than an adult life. Student housing is a place to learn and to develop socially. To organize activities, to join in those of others and to sometimes set boundaries and decide that you need a quiet night in your room.
In all my student houses, I have met people very different from me, even when they came from my own country.
Their world views, ideas and their favorite recipes have sometimes challenged me. Sometimes they have encouraged me and sometimes simply shown me that there are even more ways to prepare pasta than I always thought.
The kitchen of my current house – shared with 23 others – can be crowded, busy and messy, but one thing it is never: boring.
Whenever I feel like I’d like to chat, whether it is about a shitty day at work, the difference between low-church and high-church liturgy – yeah, I live in a special house – or simply the latest gossip, it is possible.
In exchange for that, I gladly cope with a cleaning schedule. Who knows, maybe even when I’m 65.
