In some ways, Ryan, 30, is the prototypical slow-motion boomerang adult. “I was living comfortably and within my means, but I had a beautiful studio apartment in Baltimore,” he explained to me. “I had my life, had my job, really had everything kind of going and working really well.” Until the pandemic. Ryan’s job in higher education felt especially vulnerable, and he didn’t know how he’d make rent if he were laid off or furloughed. His apartment building became a locus of anxiety: “I was worried about living in a high-rise apartment with a lot of people, and kind of every day doing the math: There are at least 300 units in my building. That means some of us already have it.” He started reconsidering his mother’s long-standing offer, “to come back for any reason or no reason at all.” His deliberations ended when “I woke up and there was a mouse in my apartment on the 14th floor. I was like, This is it, a sign I should go.”
Reclaiming his old bedroom in Bel Air, Maryland, in May allowed Ryan to exhale a little from the more immediate pressures of finances: He was able to pay off his car and clear his credit card. Still, he’s not immune to loneliness: “Living in the city, I would see friends everywhere. Out here in the suburbs, none of my friends are still here. That is a little difficult, being an adult … and not having anyone your own age around you.” The choice to move back with family, even if that move is simply across a city or county line, can create a broader, more seismic shift in how older millennials see themselves — and how we fit into conventional models of adulthood.
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